Skip to main content

Google Hangouts

See All Stories

Hangouts was announced at I/O 2013 and combined the company’s disparate messaging platforms into one unified product. It includes the text elements of Google Talk and Google+ Messenger/Huddle, as well as the video portion of Google+ Hangouts.

Hangouts allows for group conversations with two or more people and can be accessed through Android and iOS apps, as well as the web in Gmail or the dedicated Hangouts site. Users can send images, video, stickers, and location, in addition to having group video calls with multiple people.

Until recently, Hangouts was the default messaging app on Android and handled SMS text messages. However, Google began pushing users to the dedicated Messenger SMS app and is introducing a new messaging app called Allo to replace the messaging parts of Hangouts and Duo for video.

Despite the new apps, Google has noted that Hangouts will remain as the company’s messaging solution for corporate customers.

Here are all of the times Google has tried, and failed to stick with an iMessage competitor

google messages android rcs

Messaging is a core part of any smartphone, and it’s something that Apple has really nailed with the iPhone and iMessage. Googlers have voiced their frustration recently over how Apple uses iMessage as a tool for lock-in and while Apple’s resistance to RCS and other cross-platform standards is certainly annoying, the context of Google’s countless failures in messaging don’t really help the company’s case.

Expand Expanding Close

Google Chat going free in 2021, classic Hangouts migration detailed for Fi, Voice

Google Chat

At the tail end of 2018, we reported on Google’s plans to replace Hangouts with Chat and Meet. The company later confirmed the news and has since been moving enterprise users to those two apps. Google is now ready to start detailing how it will transition classic Hangouts users to a free version of Chat.

Expand Expanding Close