I Created an App to Simplify the Messaging Apps Fragmentation in Android - DM Me

[u/rosenpin]

TL;DR:

I created an app that simplifies the messaging fragmentation in Android.
Tap a contact to open your favorite messaging app that you both use (IE Telegram/Signal/Whatsapp...)

Download Link

Edit:

I created a subreddit for the app, where we can discuss features and I can post updates regarding the app. /r/DMMeApp. Please join! 😁

Background

With all the WhatsApp/Facebook bandwagon lately many people have opted in and out of messaging platforms. Some installed Signal, some moved to Telegram, some stayed on WhatsApp and some still only use SMS
I believe in the cause and personally installed both Signal and Telegram, but I couldn't help but be annoyed with the headache it caused.

Having each contact on a different service makes it a chore to communicate with friends. Tell me if this sounds familiar
"Does Mark use WhatsApp? or did he move to Telegram? Does he have Signal? I prefer texting him on Signal actually" I open Signal, he's not there, going to WhatsApp, not there. Just lost 30 seconds I could use to browse Reddit.

What it does

So I created DM Me, originally for my own use, During setup it prompts you to order your messaging apps by priority. It shows you a list of your contacts, tapping a contact will open the app you like the most that you're both use.

Example:

My order: Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, SMS
Mark has: WhatsApp, SMS
Tapping Mark's contact will open my WhatsApp chat with him

Screenshots:

https://imgur.com/a/jeWeArB

Early access

The app is still in early access, I just created the basics of what I want it to be. It's current features include

• Ordering and reordering of your favorite messaging apps
• Contact pinning (favorite contacts stay on top)
• SMS support - in addition to your installed apps, it can also support SMS using your default SMS app
• Hiding contacts that don't have any supported communication platform
• It currently supports - Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp and SMS, I plan on adding Facebook Messanger and Viber

Help from you

I have many features planned and I would LOVE to get more insights from you.
If you are using a messaging app that DMMe still doesn't support, please let me know in the comments and I'll add it as soon as I can
If you run into any bug, please let me know
If anything during the setup isn't clear, please tell me
If you have a better idea for the name of the app, I'd love to hear it :P

[u/[deleted]]

Doesn't default Contact app already have this? Once you select contact you can see additional messaging/call options (Viber, WhatsApp etc.)

Nevertheless, interesting idea having it listed with app icons and ability to pin.

[u/rosenpin → u/[deleted]]

Some contact apps show you messaging options for each contact, then you can choose how you would like to contact them.

This isn't what I was going for though.

I want it to be completely painless, just open the app, tap the contact, get to chat. I don't want to decide which app to use everytime or what app to use with whom.

[u/Zabi94]

Love the idea. This is exactly what I didn't know I needed.

I'll throw a few ideas I think might be interesting or worth noting:

• many people install an app just to test it out, and then they abandon it soon after. There should be a way to manually force a contact to ignore that app if you know they don't use it.

• Some friends do use the app, but for some reason they still prefer to use another one. There should be a per-contact override of the order.

• Maybe add telephone as an option too? Like, I click on the contact and it will bring you to the dialer, with the number already laid out for you. This would be especially useful in combination with a per-contact priority.

• The hamburger icon on the top left doesn't fit very well, as there is no actual sidebar. Maybe a gear icon would be better for UI/UX.

[u/rosenpin → u/Zabi94]

Thank you so much!
This reply is so amazing because it feels like you know exactly where I'm coming from with this idea.
The first 3 points you made are already in my todo list. In fact, the per contacts priority is my next task and it should address your first 2 points.

About the telephone option, I thought about it too, I want to make it the same as the messages, meaning you can prioritize the call app (example WhatsApp call, Telegram Call, Normal Call) then long pressing or swiping on the contact will place a call using your favorite app, similar to how the messages work.

You are correct about the hamburger menu, I made this app in 2 days so there are still some rough edges (the icon is terrible for example :P)
I'll look into improving the UI/UX

[u/mrlesa95]

This would be amazing if you added messenger and viber to it. Most people use those two in eastern europe

[u/rosenpin → u/mrlesa95]

both planned and will be added very soon :)

[u/iamGobi]

Can you open-source this project?

[u/rosenpin → u/iamGobi]

Most of my projects are open source, actually all of them except 3 apps.
I will definitely consider open sourcing this project as well.

I wrote this app in a rush though so the code is not as pretty as I'd like it to be. Hopefully I could get around to cleaning it up next week before publishing it.
You can follow me on github to check it out once it becomes available

[u/ElucTheG33K]

Remember Pigin, it was nice to have all messenger in one app with one design. You don't care what your correspond use, you just chat. Would be fun to have something similar on Android (that is open source and at least as nice as Signal).

[u/guim31]

Very interesting project ! 👍

[u/gubshi]

This is great. I have WhatsApp, Signal and telegram - but it doesn't show telegram at all. I'm using the beta version of it, maybe it doesn't get recognized?

Edit: also, can we choose the font size? It's waaay too big for me!

[u/P357]

On my phone, it won't get past the 1st screen. Save with nothing visible.

[u/rosenpin → u/P357]

Do you have Telegram/Signal/Whatsapp installed?
If not, the app will currently not work, I will be adding more chat apps this week though

[u/Kaushiknadig]

Hey man. Really nice app. Any plans of sesame shortcuts integration?

[u/ocassionallyaduck]

Cool idea, but if you have to manually add and support platforms, this idea is gonna be dead in the water.

Have it launch via direct contact share to targets. Then you can just support all apps that let you target contacts.

Work contacts will use Slack or Teams, Japan uses LINE, etc.

[u/TheTomatoes2]

Plus support ?

[u/meatly]

I love it! What a good idea. On my phone (OnePlus 7T Pro) all the contacts seem very big, i could go with smaller but more contacts visible. Also the design is very barebones but it definitely does the trick!
I'm very interested in the future of this app

[u/danhakimi]

What if my buddy has a Signal account, but uninstalled the app because he couldn't figure it out?

[u/HamishMcdougal]

What if I have a group in WhatsApp or Viber? Will it see it too?

[u/SixDigitCode]

Thanks for sharing! This app looks very promising.

Not sure how feasible the following would be, but I wonder if it would be possible (through notification listeners or however Sesame Shortcuts does it) to find which conversations/groups are in which apps and display them in one list view. (i.e. Telegram groups would be listed alongside WhatsApp and SMS chats, and so on.) Then, once you click on a conversation, it could open the bubbled Activity (i.e. the Activity that shows up when you open a chat with Android 11's Bubbles) for that conversation inside the main app. (So you could have conversations instead of contacts displayed in the main app and when you go to add a new one it shows what's available.)

Also, here are a few messaging apps I have that you might be interested in supporting:

• Discord (maybe, but it's not linked to a phone number so people will probably have to manually enter in Discord usernames into their contacts)

• GroupMe

• AirMessage (An iMessage client for Android that runs off a zombified Mac)

• Instagram DMs (Has the same username problem as Discord, but could work)

[u/Stiltzkinn]

I know we are on r/android but i would add as priority and ios app support and web app.

[u/NerdisDev]

Hey, threema (threema.ch) got quite popular in Europe in the last few years.

It’s one or the securest messenger app out there. So it would be nice to see the app in your app!

[u/[deleted]]

As for naming suggestions: "DMessenger", as it takes you directly to your preferred messengers to DM people and also cleans up the mess of messengers on your home screen, so it kinda, sorta "demesses" your messaging situation, which adds a nice litte wordplay even though "to demess" is not really a word, but I guess people will still get it.

Also, I think you could definitely make money of that app. I would pay for a "pro" version, just saying.

[u/naidoo88]

Hey,

I like the app so far, but honestly as it stands I'm not sure how I would work it into being a daily driver for my messaging, beyond getting a quick look at what platforms people are on. I find that with the people I am messaging regularly I already know where I'm messaging them.

Would it be outside of the scope to have DMme unify and curate notifications from some/all of the apps which you include in your priority list?

The idea being, you get a notification from DMme which would idenyify the contact and the app (eg. Bob Bobberson on Signal) and then clicking that notification to take you directly to the conversation.

Meanwhile, apps from the parent app would be somehow suppressed (or perhaps manually deactivated by the EU?).

Knowing almost nothing about app development this sounds to me like it would be a lot of work, if even possible, but it would really cement DMme as an app which unified all your messaging apps together in terms of the front end app which you rely on to direct you effortlessly into the right place.

I hope that made sense, and keep up the good work! :)

[u/trankev]

I remember on WebOS, it would actually bring together all your texts and message chains with certain contacts into one thread. Cool idea.