[eigenvector]

The problem is that there is no user-settable 'offline mode', so as soon as Google detects an Internet connection (even a very slow one) it starts trying to behave as if it's on a 100Mbps LTE connection. This makes many Google apps totally unusable on low-bandwidth networks.

When you open apps like Hangouts, Google Maps, etc. on low-bandwidth connections, they immediately try to sync an onslaught of data before making the UI responsive based on the existing offline state. Data that could take hours to sync at 5kb/s.

There's no reason I haven't have a text-only messaging conversation perfectly well on a 2G network. Except when Google tries to sync 50MB of pictures from a conversation I haven't even selected yet, and all of my 500 contacts' profile photos, before I can do anything else.

Incidentally, this is why everyone outside of North America uses WhatsApp.

[brewrwe]

Heh, I'm an avid Signal User due to that, not terribly much message syncing going on as the message database is stored on your device :3

[izacus]

What are you talking about? There's literally a "WiFi only" toggle in Google Maps app.

[eigenvector]

How well do you suppose that would work on say, a satellite connection over wi-fi?