Google launched Nexus 5 on 31st October and with that came Android 4.4 – KitKat. Hangouts v2.0.012 comes with support of SMS, sending and receiving animated GIFs, location sharing and many other improvements. This latest version of Hangouts has been extracted from the Nexus 5 devices.
On launching Hangouts you’ll be asked to enable SMS integration. You can enable/disable SMS integration whenever you wish to in the Settings section. Hangouts doesn’t ask you to set that as the default SMS app. The default SMS app remains the same, old one.
You can now share your locations with your friends and send/receive animated GIFs.
Moods is another new addition. It’s basically like status updates in WhatsApp and Hike.
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The APK download link is mentioned at the bottom of this post.
To install this APK file, you’ll have to enable installation from Unknown Sources in your Android settings section. Go to Settings > Security and enable the Unknown Sources option.
Some users have reported crash reports/bugs with some devices running this updated version. As for me, I’ve not experienced any crashes.
If you are enthusiastic about trying the new SMS integration, download the APK right now, or you can choose to wait till Google updates Hangouts on Google Play Store.
Google integrated every chat platform Google has created into a single one named “Hangouts”. Codenamed “Babel”, Google Hangouts was announced at the Google I/O 2013 event. Hangouts will make cross-platform chatting or messaging a lot more easier.
While Hangouts looks pretty brilliant both on the outside and the inside, it is still in it’s development stages. The Google+ Messenger still exists on the Android ecosystem. Google is yet to kick that and merge that into Hangouts.
Hangouts isn’t as impressive as Google Talks. Hangouts lacks some of the most basic features like displaying the online status of a particular contact properly. The Hangouts app on Android doesn’t show which friends are online at present. But the Hangouts on Gmail for web gives you a hint of the online status – that is, the online friends’ display picture is highlighted with a green line at the bottom.
Removing Hangouts on your Gmail for web can be pretty easy. It’s really simple that it goes unnoticed by most of the people. With just a couple of clicks, you can move to the old, familiar Google Talk.
Log into your Gmail account.
The Hangouts section loads at the bottom left of the screen.
Once it loads, click on the Arrow mark near your name and choose Revert to old chat.
A confirmation box opens up and you should confirm that you want to move to Google Talk.
Once done, you’ll notice the old, familiar Google Talk in the place of Hangouts. Now you can easily see the list of your online friends.
If you ever wanted to upgrade to Hangouts again, just click on the Arrow mark near your name again and click the “Try the new Hangouts” option.
Yesterday, during the I/O keynote, Google has released its heavily rumoured instant messaging client codenamed ‘Babel’ – called Hangouts.
Well, why would Google release yet-another-instant-messaging-client? This time, they have a unique approach to it. They want Hangouts to replace all the messaging apps they’ve made till now. It’s kind of surprising how it took Google this long to realize this.
Hangouts is released for Android, Chrome and iOS. On Chrome, it is available as an extension which sits in your system tray or menu bar, more like a native app. The mobile apps (Android and iOS) are very well designed and show a lot of detail in UI.
The Android app for example, lets you swipe to dismiss the conversations (like you do in Gmail). There are lot of small transitions and animations hidden here and there. When you send a new message, an ellipsis starts animating (or dancing, if you prefer that way) and shows that it’s delivered.
You can of course send images and there’s plenty of emoji. Group Video and Voice calling are probably the standing out features, as originally seen in Google+ Hangouts. You can also snooze notifications for a specified amount of time (there needs to be such a system wide toggle in Android).
But Good is not enough
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So Hangouts works well on Chrome, iOS and Android. But it completely misses the most important feature – unifying all Google messaging apps. Sure, Hangouts replaces Talk and Google+ Messenger. But what about Google Voice (US-only) and more importantly, the (SMS) Messaging app.
Hangouts is obviously not available for less popular platforms like Windows Phone, Symbian, so it perfectly makes sense to integrate SMS into the app itself. So that you can SMS your friends who’re on those platforms.
That’s not the only downside of Hangouts, though. Hangouts doesn’t use XMPP, which is the widely used open protocol for instant messaging. But why should you care? Well, the number of instant messaging apps dependent on XMPP is mind blowing. I use iMessage for Mac as my default IM client, and Google Talk and Facebook Chat work perfectly. Because, both of them rely on XMPP.
Though it looks like Google won’t be shutting down Talk, leaving it for people who really need XMPP. Still, Google not respecting open web standards? Never expected this.
The sad thing for Google, is that, its competitors are doing really well. Facebook’s new Messenger app can do SMS. Heck, it even does Chat Heads – a really cool way to chat on your Android or iPhone. WhatsApp looks much better now with the flat Holo UI on Android.
The tl;dr is that, though Google has put some real effort into Hangouts, it is indeed going to be just another messaging app.
UPDATE: Some of the Google Fellows have confirmed that Messaging and Voice integration is coming to Hangouts soon. But here’s the thing: The fact that Google can’t ship a Messaging app with all its promised features (SMS and Voice integration) is what disappoints me.
Also, Google+ app on Android has got updated today, and it still has traces of Google+ Messenger in it. That surely tells that there’s a lot of work left for Google.
Google+ might not be getting a lot of buzz but its Hangout feature is being increasingly adopted. So it is not very surprising, that Gujarat’s Chief Minister, Narendra Modi will be on a Google+ Hangout session which will be available on YouTube Live.
Google+ Hangouts is not new to politicians using it for interactive sessions. One of the most famous examples has been of the US President Barack Obama, answering questions from people on a live Hangout session.
Narendra Modi on Google+ Hangout
A Hangout session will be held and shown live on Youtube with some participants, who will ask him questions on various topics.
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The questions have to be submitted in the comments section on this post. The best questions will be selected and the winners will be able to ask the politician their questions themselves. Last date to submit questions is 27th August midnight.
The live Hangout session will take place on 31st August 2012, 20.00 hrs IST. You can view the Google+ event page for the Hangout session here.
Politicians love/hate relationship with social media
Social media has been lately, gathering a lot of adoption from politicians around the world. Most world leaders do have some sort of presence on some social media website or the other.
Even some Indian politicians have been active on social networks, especially Twitter. But not all politicians are fond of social media, especially whenever there is a lot of criticism of politicians or their policies.
A lot my friends from the blogosphere consider Google+ a flop show. But despite the flop status, it enjoys a very popular service called Hangouts. Google+ Hangouts allows users to video chat with many users at the same time. Hangouts are popular on tablets and even mobile phones.
Google has announced that Hangouts for Gmail users. The roll-out should happen over the next few days.
Google’s Smartest Move
It can be argued that Gmail is Google’s most successful social product. It is used extensively for video and voice chat. I use Gmail’s chat more often and regularly than Google+ to keep in touch with my friends.
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Hangouts on Gmail, is a subtle way to get Gmail users get hooked to Google+.
It means you can now video chat with friends who are using a mobile phone or tablet and using the Google+ App even if you are using Gmail on your computer.
Google+ Hangouts has largely been seen as a fun product but it can be very a crucial product for offices, especially if they are on Google Apps. With Hangout Apps users can share desktop screens or work on a Google Doc while collaborating in teams.
With Hangouts being made available with Gmail, expect it to turn the heat up on Skype.
Do you think Hangouts for all Gmail users will give Google+ a boost? Do drop in your comments.
Google+ started out pretty much as a much better designed copy of Facebook. The user-interface and privacy options certainly earned it some approval but people in general did not flock to it in droves. That is because, you cannot dislodge a leader (read Facebook) by just creating a clone of it.
Google seems to be realizing this and has started leveraging its one truly different product called Hangouts.
Yesterday, Google announced that users can publicly broadcast their Hangouts.
How to start Public Broadcast of Hangouts!
Start a hangout with your Google+ friends. A new option to broadcast Hangouts will be available.
Select it and start with the Hangout. The whole Hangout will be available on your Google+ profile publicly. Google+ users will be able to watch it live.
What makes Hangouts more interesting is that the public Hangouts will also be streamed on your YouTube channel. It can also be embedded on a website or blog.
Check the video below that shows a demo of public broadcast of a Google+ Hangout.
Skype needs to watch out!
I remember writing a post on 5 companies that Google+ could put out of business. One of them was Skype and that is because currently, it is used often to record online interviews. Hangouts could potentially replace Skype and its relevancy very quickly.
What are your views on Public Broadcasting of Hangouts? Do drop in your comments.
Google+ might not have made a big dent in the social media niche but it has a popular feature in Hangouts. Hangouts allow small groups to conduct video chat online. There are many Hangouts which are very informative and it would be great to catch up on a few.
GPHangouts.com is a website that is like a search service and directory for public Hangouts.
For instance I searched for WordPress related hangouts and straight away I got a link to a public Hangout.
A lot of users also tend to schedule public Hangout sessions and add them to the website’s directory. To schedule a Hangout session on the directory, users need to use their Google ID to sign in. I guess this is insurance against spammers who might schedule fake Hangouts.
Users can even search on Google+ for current Hangouts which are happening. But there is not option to schedule Hangouts.
