The updated Google Hangouts App, which was announced last week just prior to the release of the Nexus 5 and Android 4.4 at their ‘Morning With Google’ Google+ event has just arrived in Google Play and is rolling out to users who have it installed as an update.
The new version – 2.0.122 – brings about the three major features announced at the event – Location Sharing, SMS Integration and animated GIF integration. The full list from the What’s New section :
- SMS & MMS (Android 4.0+): Send/receive text messages with Hangouts! You can import your existing messages, quickly switch between SMS and Hangouts, and start group MMS conversations
- Animated GIFs: send animated GIFs, cute kittens and all
- Location: share a location in your conversations
- Device, in-call, mood status: share what device you’re on, whether you’re on a call, or your current mood
Users who downloaded and side-loaded the APK which was ripped from the Nexus 5 system dump, when the Factory Image went live on the Nexus Factory Images page, reported issues with video calling and from comments, this version appears to resolve that issue.
Of course, if you don’t want to use Hangouts as your default SMS client, we recommend you try out 8SMS which Buzz had a look at last week, it’s essentially the stock SMS app with a few tweaks.
Have you tried out the new Hangouts? What’s your favourite new feature? Any issues?
