6:05pm
Somehow, Hangouts has managed to become worse when upgrading from a Note II on KK4.4.2 to a Note 4 on L5.0.1. Now instead of running slowly when trying to load an MMS thread with about 2,000 message, it just hangs and reboots the whole phone. I mean Hangouts has always been a piece of shit on Android but come on Google. Apparently Snapdragon 805 and 3 GB of RAM isn't enough to run Hangouts.
I didn't want to go back to the ugly default Samsung messaging client, so out of curiosity I opened the Verizon Message+ app. This...this is amazingly not awful. It more or less copies the UI design of the Gmail app. It actually is nice and fast. And it actually loads my big MMS thread without exploding like Hangouts.
I don't know. I'm not really a person who uses carrier apps but of the 3 choices I have, Hangouts, Samsung Messages, and Verizon Message+, it's actually Verizon Message+ which seems to be the best app. In an insane world, it may actually be the sanest choice.