Google Hangouts is an easy way to stay in touch with all the people synced to your account. It’s a free social service that lets you communicate by sending text messages, pictures, videos, and emojis. You can send messages to people whether they’re online or not and host free group video calls for up to 10 people at a time.
In the world of VoIP calls and free video, a war started ages ago between Skype (owned by Microsoft), mobile chat applications like Viber or LINE, and Hangouts, the offering from the giant of Mountain View, Google.
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Google Hangouts now receives SMS messages in the Android apps, a feature which irritates many users because of the fact that text messages and Hangout chats don’t sync in one conversation, even if they’re from the same contact. Luckily, there is a way of getting around this feature without deleting the app, and it’s as simple as disabling integration with SMS. Check out the video below for a quick tutorial on how to prevent Google Hangouts from receiving text messages.
A minor update to Google Hangouts for Android is rolling out now, bringing fixes for group messaging. Version 2.0.2 updates how the app handles group messaging by allowing users to toggle the use of MMS. Previous versions of Hangouts only allowed sending of group messages via MMS, which cost some users money if their plan doesn’t include unlimited MMS. In this latest version, users can uncheck the option to use MMS to send a single message to multiple people.
When Google introduced Hangouts during its I/O developer conference, it seemed that the company would be rolling together all of its chat services into one. However, Google Voice, the seemingly abandoned texting, calling, and voicemail transcription service didn’t really get any love. In fact, it was removed from Gmail altogether. That changes today as Google has brought back calling with Hangouts for Gmail and the web.
One of the things we liked most about Google Hangouts, Google’s new messaging app, are the emoticons and emojis. They’re unique, cute and well-designed, so it’s easy to find and recognize them.