With all the rumours, leaks and particularly the screenshots that are appearing more consistently by the day it seems more and more likely that Google Babel is in fact real, and fast approaching. In a way it doesn’t feel right labelling these posts as rumours, but until there’s an official announcement, we’ve no proof that Babel is in fact a “real” product.
It’s probably fair to say that Google’s many and varied messaging solutions have caused users a headache or two at some stage – even we get confused from time to time – so a clear effort to centralize all of this in a single service with a pleasant, modern user interface is exciting. Every day, we see more and more information emerge regarding rumoured functions and capabilities.
Droid Life is today reporting new information – including a rough feature list for Babel:
- iOS interface
- New UI
- Cross device sync, includes message review on any attached device
- A desktop app
- Single notification of any one message
- Group conversation
- MMS style photo attachment
- Google Voice is “coming”
We’ve previously seen a number of screenshots giving us a look at Babel. While there’s no major surprises, it’s great to see cross device sync of messaging and notifications listed. Users should be able to start a conversation on one device and continue it on another, echoing the Continuous Client idea that’s been around for some time now.
Notably, Google’s highlighted the iOS interface as some of their best work on the platform to date. While an iOS client for a cross-platform messaging service seems a foregone conclusion, this might indicate that they want to take on iMessage nose-to-nose.
Of the latest rumored features list, one I’m keen to see is the single notification of messages. This should see an end to the receipt of notifications across all logged-in devices – once you acknowledge the message on one device, all other devices’ notifications are cancelled – an intelligent and time saving system.
There’s a lot of speculation that Babel will be announced at Google I/O in May – just a few weeks away. It certainly sounds like it will answer the call of many users who have been asking for a more centralised messaging solution.
Are you looking forward to Babel’s release? What features are you keen to try? Let us know in the comments below.
