Google has given Hangouts for Android a major makeover. The mobile chat and SMS app is getting smarter with new features and enhancements that will bring it in line with other messaging apps.
First up, Hangouts is getting into the latest trend of stickers. The app is offering 16 sticker packs including cats, bubbles, festive stickers and more. Secondly, when someone asks “where are you?” during a chat, Hangouts will automatically surface a “share my location” button. After tapping the button a map of your surroundings will appear that can be chosen for Hangouts to share your actual Google Maps location.
Hangouts is even adding filters to videos including sepia, vignette, and a black and white option to make your video conversation more fun. Finally, similar to WhatApp and other mobile messaging apps, Hangouts will now add the “last seen” time stamp to conversations that will let your friends know when you were last available on Hangouts.
Some of these new features make use of the natural language processing (NLP) and AI tech Google acquired with its purchase of Emu in August. In addition to these features, Android Police points out that the Hangouts has added the ability to switch between Google Voice and carrier SMS without diving into the app settings. Users can do this by tapping on spinner,” the toggle in the conversation window that already allowed you to alternate between Hangouts and SMS.
Google said that the new version of Hangouts will be available for download at the Play Store today but the last seen time stamp feature will be slowly added to the app in coming weeks. Moreover, all these latest features will also make their way to iOS and other platforms soon.
App link – Hangouts