Recently, Google announced a major update to the Google Hangouts app for Android and promised that that a similar IOS update will be coming soon as well. The latest features used in this app will make it easier to discover your friends, understand when they are around and also cut down the time you spend on messaging in this app. Bradley Horowitz, the vice president of Google, introduced the new features on the LeWeb stage in Paris on 2014.
He also promised that there are many more features coming. According to him, the developers are just getting started. Presently, the contacts now have a ‘last seen’ timestamp. Thanks to this, you will never have to ask “Are you there?” again. This is similar to the Facebook Messenger, where you can see when your friend and colleagues were last active.
Similarly, Google Hangouts also allows you to share your location by choosing the attachment paperclip icon. The selection of Location from the options and hitting send will allow you to share your location. Presently, Google has also added a smart suggestion location sharing option which allows you to accomplish this in a single tap. When someone asks “where are you”, the app will immediately prompt you to drop a pin on the map itself.
Now, it is easier to locate your friends on the Google Hangouts app, making use of their phone number. The people do not need to be a personal contact on your smartphone. If your friends and colleagues simply use Hangouts and have opted-in to phone number discoverability, you can easily link up with him on Hangouts.
Furthermore, Google Hangouts is also receiving quite a few Easter eggs and 16 new stickers. Although Google didn’t specify any number, it did hint that sending of keywords will result in a specific animation popping up. For example, “woot” and “happy birthday” along with others like “hahaha”. According to Horowitz, although the stickers are not new, they “really went to town on this”. The video calls are also getting video filter options.
These include features like sepia, black and white, vignette and much more. He stated that these are certainly not recommended if you use them at work, but among friends they can be really entertaining. All of the latest additions to Google Hangouts are quite useful and entertaining.
However, among all of them, the “last seen” timestamps are the most important of them all. Some people consider the latest “Hangouts” features to be a little creepy in nature. At the same time, there are many who consider these to be ‘bloat’ and ask for a basic SMS app. For these people, Google now has the latest ‘Google Messenger’ app.