Mei Features for Android
Rich Communication Services (RCS)
In our latest release, we now support end-to-end encrypted RCS (Rich Communication Services). We have been working on upgrading SMS to our users, to provide a better, more enhanced messaging experience on Androids. To enable RCS, go to Settings -> Account and Advanced Features and toggle on “Data Messages (RCS)”. Your messages are then sent end-to-end encrypted via internet, instead of SMS/MMS via telephone carrier, when you message other Mei users. Enjoy better texting with rich messages, media, big groups and extra features.
Folders, Labels & Spam Filter
Mei’s folders and labels are designed to help manage the clutter in your text messages conversation view and provide a better messaging experience. When you login your text conversations are automatically organized into folders (one-on-one conversations in “Chats”, group conversations in “Groups” and spam messages in “Unnamed”. The “Unnamed” folder contains spam and any other texts from numbers that haven’t been saved to your contacts. You’re also able to create your own custom labels. Just click the ‘+’ button above the conversation list and type in the name you want to call it. For example, if you have a lot of work-related conversations, you can create a “Work” folder to keep those in one place. You can then easily drag and drop the conversations you want into that folder.
"Blast" Feature
Ever want to reach out to friends, co-workers or family members with the same message, without spamming everyone in a group chat? Just go into the folder that you have created to send a blast message to and then tap the folder title to reveal a drop-down menu. Hit “Blast” and you’ll be able to type a message that will be personalized for each contact. The ‘@contact’ will be replaced by the first word of the contact’s name, as saved in your phone. You can remove this for a generic message.
Full Customization
When you first download Mei, it comes in neutral colors (black and white). If you’re a more colorful person you can easily change the colors and color themes. In the menu in the upper right corner, under “Settings” -> “Appearance”, you can select custom theme color, background color (light, dark and black modes) and background picture. You can also customize the tinting of some bars. If you’re not happy with the default font and message bubbles, you can also change font family, size and weight and message bubbles shape and colors.
Scheduling, Disappearing & Expiring
Mei comes with lots of advanced messaging features. If you hold down the send button you get the option to schedule a message to send later. If you decide you don’t want to send the scheduled message after all, you can cancel it before it sends. You also have the option to send disappearing messages, which are deleted after they’re read and expiring messages, which are deleted after a set time.
User Generated Polling
If you’ve turned on polling in Settings -> Account and Advanced Features -> Anonymous Polling, you can create your own polls to send to other Mei users. Just go to the polls folder, click the + sign and you’ll be taken to the poll creation screen. You can create an anonymous poll with multiple questions and answer choices, ask 20 people or 1000 and award them as many credits as you choose for answering your question(s). You can also target particular demographics, currently; Gender, Age and Marital Status, but we’re looking to expand this. Once your poll is approved, you’ll start receiving answers on your poll straight away.
Get Personalized Advice
If you’ve turned on the AI assistant, you’ll start receiving texting advice based on perceived personality differences. Our unique personalities and ways we express ourselves can often lead to miscommunication and misinterpretation. Mei will consider what she detects as differences between the user’s and contact’s personalities and provide initial suggestions on how to bridge the gap in communication. For example, if she perceives a contact as very spontaneous and you as more organized, she’ll tell the you it’s okay to play things by ear.
Explore Personality
If you’ve turned on the AI assistant, you’ll be able to see a full personality profile showing you how you come across through texts. Unlike most personality tools, which ask question after question, we don’t need any input from you to generate your profile. Mei uses algorithms to analyze the text messages already on your phone. You’ll get your personality across five primary dimensions: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. Each dimension consists of 6 traits such as outgoing vs. reserved, trusting vs. skeptical, traditional vs. liberal. Mei will show you where you score in all 30 traits compared to thousands of people.Â
User Overview
If you click on the pulsing ball in the top left corner, you’ll see “User Overview”. Here you’re able to add and remove tags, which will improve intelligence where we have refined models (e.g. analysis on women may be different from men). You can also “Ask Mei” anything we have a model on. Currently, Mei can tell you which one of your contacts are the most caring. We will be adding more questions later on.
Mood & Journaling
If you have the AI turned on, Mei will ask about your mood daily (a slider from sad to happy) and if there is something else you want to journal. What have you done today, anything in particular that happened or other feelings you had that you want to track. On the “User Overview” screen you’re able to track your own behavior. Both mood history and journal entry history will be displayed, so you can look back and see how your mood has changed over time. We are also working on building more moods and emotions that can be tracked.
Contact Overview
If you click on a contact’s avatar and click “Contact Overview”, you’ll see their full analytic summary. Here you can add and remove tags, which allows for more refined intelligence from Mei and enables organization. You’ll also see how metrics have changed and trended over time. Mei can measure how balanced your relationship is through analyzing a range of features (e.g. number of texts, response times, length of messages, conversations initiated, emoji usage, punctation, etc.) The graph shows whether the balance of the relationship has moved to your favor or your contact’s and how this has evolved over time. You can also “Ask Mei” anything we have a model on. Currently, Mei can tell you if a contact has a crush on you. We will be adding more questions later on.