We asked, you told us: Most of you don't care for Android chat bubbles

Android has offered chat bubbles since Android 11, essentially being small chat windows that float over other apps. But the concept dates back to the chat heads feature in the Facebook app in the early 2010s.

Our own Rob Triggs wrote an opinion piece recently, saying that chat bubbles had the potential to be a great feature but that it was a buggy mess right now. We also included a poll in this article, asking whether you used chat bubbles. Here’s how you answered it.

Do you use Android’s chat bubbles?

Results

Just over 920 votes were counted as of writing, and it turns out that the most popular pick by a tiny margin was “I tried but gave up” (36.32%). This result suggests that plenty of people are interested in the concept but are ultimately unhappy with the execution or realized it simply wasn’t for them.

Meanwhile, 36% of respondents said they’ve never used chat bubbles before. A couple of readers noted in the comments that they simply didn’t like having floating windows/notifications of any kind.

Related poll article: Here’s how often you use floating app windows

Finally, 27.68% of polled readers said they do indeed use chat bubbles in Android. That’s a decent chunk of respondents who use it, but it still means that over 72% of polled readers don’t care for chat bubbles.

Comments

• Konrad Uroda-Darłak: The best feature, game changer for me.
• Drone9: It’s Google so .. things either get worse. Or they get discontinued.
• Evie: Maybe irrationally, but I can’t stand any type of floating widget, dial, bubble, button or whatever. No idea why but I hate them all with passion!
• 🇦🇺Marshall: I can’t stand notifications scattered everywhere, especially on the lock screen, so they’re turned off. Messages either stack and sit in my notifications bar, or wait until I open Messages.
• pablomentabo: I gave up after they limited it by making bubbles not display the keyboard properly if you use an app that draws over other apps (like a edge launcher)