Okay, I admit it. When it comes to text applications, I’m a curmudgeon. I follow a couple of people on Twitter, but I find reading zillions of short, choppy messages annoying. I’d much rather read an essay. Still, I suppose text messages on my phone are useful. They tell me when an Amazon package is arriving, for example. They are unavoidable whether I hate them or not.
But where I really stumble is sending text messages. I get that SMS means “Simple Messaging System,” so that the content is limited to 160 characters. That’s not what I hate. It’s the blipping interface.
I’ve got the latest Samsung Ultra phone, which at least has a nice large screen, but it still uses that little itty-bitty keyboard. I’m constantly mistyping things, changing my message to gibberish. The phone makes helpful improvements, changing things like “plug” to “pluck” when it make no sense while talking to an electrician. The voice recognition software is unreliable and frequently makes errors that would be hilarious if they weren’t so infuriating. If I had a choice, I’d never send a text message longer than a few characters like “yes” or “no.” the interface is dreadful.
However, I find that I’m forced to use text messages in cases where I’d much rather send an email. Businesses that provide services, like plumbers or food delivery services such as Instacart, increasingly communicate only via text. I’m currently working with an electrician, for example, and I can only reach him via text. Typing out what I want done in any detail is a frustrating and time-consuming experience. My phone is not responsive to my shouted verbal condemnations urging it to have carnal relations with itself. I’m stuck with it if I want to get my electrical work done.
Until now, that is.
Or, more accurately, until last December. I guess I’m slow.
Google now provides an interface that links your desktop web browser to your android phone. Using this interface–more on how do that in a moment–I can now see on my desktop computer all of the messages that are on my phone. I can compose new messages or reply to existing ones using my desktop computer. That means I’ve got an actual keyboard to type my messages!
Hallelujah!
Apparently Google rolled this out in the US in December of 2019. The Google messaging app has been around since 2014–it’s the web interface part that’s fairly new. In the last year, downloads of this app have increased to over one billion users, doubling in the last year. The Google messaging app is part of Google’s initiative to give android phones a rich communication system (RCS) similar to what’s long been available via iMessage on iPhones. The new system will offer many improvements over SMS messages, but the one I’m writing about here is the native ability to sync your desktop and your phone.
Syncing phones and desktops isn’t an entirely new idea. For example, Microsoft Office’s email client Outlook includes this as an add-on. I’m an emeritus professor, so my former employer lets me continue to use their mail servers. Unfortunately for me, they haven’t implemented the SMS add-on to Outlook.
Here’s how the new Google web interface works. First, you need to install the Google messaging app on your android phone–it might already be on your phone if you recently purchased it. Once it’s installed, you need to make it your default messaging application. To do this, just open the app. If it’s not already the default, it will ask if you want it to be the default. Respond with “yes.” For me, that meant changing the default messaging on my Samsung phone to the Google app.
Now point your desktop browser to messages.google.com. The first time you do this, it brings up an introductory screen. Near the top there is a link, “Messages for Web.” When you click that, a new window opens and displays a QR scan code. Back on your phone, open the messaging app. Click on the three dots in the upper-right-hand corner of the app and select “Messages for Web.” It asks you to open the QR scanner on your phone. Do so and point the phone’s camera at the scan code displayed on your desktop monitor. Presto! Your desktop and your phone are now linked via the internet. You’ll be asked if the app should “remember this computer.” If you’re at home, you should say “yes” unless you want to repeat these steps every time you use it. If you’re on a shared or public computer, say “no.”
Once linked, you’re good to go! The first thing I did was use this to send four texts to my electrician outlining what I needed done. No need to correct “plucks” to “plugs.” No hard-to-fix typos. A texting interface with a real keyboard! Go figure. The text gets sent from my phone using the connection we just created, so there’s no confusion at the other end as to who is sending the message.
Now for some technical details. First, the connection is specific to your computer. If you have a second computer, you can repeat the process for that computer and get a specific link that lets you use your browser on that computer to interface with your phone’s texting app. It works the same way. Your phone can only connect to one computer at a time, so it will disable to the connection to the first computer when you create the second one. Not to worry, if you refresh your browser window back on the first computer, your phone will, with your permission, break the connection with the second computer and reopen the connection to the first computer. I have laptop computers in the bedroom and the media room, so I’ve created connections to these as well as to my desktop.
Second, the connection is presently slightly less secure than SMS messages. The latter are fully encrypted between the sender and the receiver. As of May 2020, this end-to-end encryption is still under development for the services described in this blog. That means that third parties could, at least in theory, read my message to my electrician. I won’t be sending anything confidential like credit card information via text in any case, but users should be aware of this.
Yes, I know that iMessage already provides a rich communication interface. I don’t use iPhones and don’t want to spend time learning a new interface. I also know there are third party apps like the one for Outlook I mentioned above. This isn’t about those either.
I wrote the title to this blog yesterday, when I’d just discovered how to do all of this. I still don’t like texting, but at least I don’t hate it anymore.