Google has started rolling out update for Hangouts that bumps the app to version 5.0. The app gets a number of bug fixes and performance improvements in this update.
The latest update brings improvements in the overall performance of the Hangouts app. A new splash screen is added that appears when the app opens up. MMS messages can now also be composed if you’re using Google Voice in Hangouts. The Hangouts v5.0 now features checkboxes with brighter shade of green.
A bug related to broken animated GIFs has been fixed and are now properly supported, although they still only play in conversation view mode. A lag related to loading and sending message has also been fixes. Finally, the 3×3 widget for Hangouts has been taken down. Google is rolling the app out now by way of the Google Play Store. You can manually download the APK file and side-load it, if you don’t have the update yet.