Google Android Chat Icons — Helpful Tool or Privacy Breaker?
Yesterday, Google introduced a Gmail Labs feature that tells you if your friends are online using an Android device. I can definitely see some benefit to this — before even sending an instant message to someone, you gain a little context of that person’s mobility. And that can help dictate the message scope you send. If I know that someone is on their handset, for example, I try to keep my IM conversations shorter and I also give them more time to respond. I’ve found that if I don’t make that adjustment, the chat conversation gets laggy and both parties are typing over each other because we’re “out of sync.”
The obvious flipside here is one of privacy. I don’t think it’s a big deal that people know that I’m on an Android handset as opposed to a computer of some type. The whole point to instant messaging is the “instant” nature when you want to communicate with friends — if you don’t want people to know you’re online, simply don’t sign in. Or better yet — go invisible. But I’m curious if you see this as a huge red flag. Bear in mind that you can turn this feature on or off in your Gmail Labs settings, so ultimately you have control. Your IM buddies can see the standard availability dots or they can see the little Androids — it’s up to you. Thoughts?
As long as people can control it, I don’t see the big deal. You want it…turn it on. You don’t want it…turn it off.
Since I have the option on my phone to indicate whether people can tell I’m on my Android or not, I don’t see this as an issue.
In GTalk, open Settings, Mobile Indicator
this feature is probably based on the name and version of the jabber client, information you can see in some advanced chat clients like Trillian for instance
you can see if someone is using trillian, pidgin, gtalk, gmail web… android gtalk probably has a distinctive signature that this lab addon recognizes
so it’s only showing info that users can already get to, just most of the software doesn’t expose it
C’mon, Skype does this with no option to disable it already when you’re on some mobile devices. (Well, maybe it has one and I missed it…)
I think that’s good. I know I’ve had issues with an IM client on my iPhone when people are expecting 200wpm typing skills as I peck out msgs slowly….
I don’t think it’s a problem at all. However, shouldn’t the icon just be generic “mobile” instead of only android? Sure, google wants to help their baby out, but lots of non-android people use gtalk.