Google Updates Hangouts: Merging IM and SMS
by Joshua Ho on April 21, 2014 5:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Android
- Mobile
Today, Google announced an update to Hangouts that brings some new features. The first mentioned is merging conversations, which brings feature parity with iMessage in that regard. Google has also improved contact sorting with phone and Hangouts sections as seen below, and added a homescreen widget to view messages on the homescreen. Google has also noted some reliability and performance improvements such as higher quality video chats and better SMS/MMS sending and receiving.
Overall, nothing major seems to change with this update, but it does fix some points of friction for those that use the application.
Source: Google
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Arnulf - Tuesday, April 22, 2014 - link
Who cares about their crap? I had to replace their shitty SMS app, dialer (what kind of mongoloid came up with the color scheme and design choices for that abomination anyway?), browser and launcher in order to make my Nexus 5 usable.Alas the browser alternatives are almost as bad as Chrome so I ended up with Firefox, but Contacts+ (dialer, SMS) and Apex Launcher are just awesome.
caleblloyd - Wednesday, April 23, 2014 - link
I wonder if it's a phased rollout. I don't have the option to upgrade on my 4.4 HTC one yet.darwinosx - Wednesday, April 23, 2014 - link
Requires a Google + account which means I will never use it.sany - Monday, April 28, 2014 - link
I am not sure how to access the home screen widget, under widgets I can't find one that belongs to Hangouts.!??chadbordes - Monday, April 28, 2014 - link
Its a great idea and a big step for google voice/hangouts, however it is very cumbersome to send MMS via the new messaging system, especially if you have conversations going on with your old google voice number. I have found that 1/2 to 3/4 of the time, the messages won't send on wifi or data network, where as with the stock messaging app I can send MMS via wifi (tmobile)