“Today’s real-time communication products make conversations difficult. Some require everyone to use the same operating system. Others support video calls, but not photo-sharing. And still others enable mobile messaging but ignore the web entirely. Patchy solutions (including our own) preclude meaningful connections online, and we aim to fix this,” Google’s Vic Gundotra noted in a blog post.
So, Google Hangouts is here to fix all you communication problems. It will be integrating all of Google’s existing communication platforms like Google Talk, Gmail Chat, Google+ Messenger and more into one product.
According to Google, Hangsouts will be available as a standalone app for Android, iOS, and Chrome (for PC, Mac, Linux etc.). It will also be integrated in Gmail and Google+. There is no word on Hangouts release for other platforms; anyways we don’t care for them.
Here is a quick look at Google Hangouts features
- Support for Photos and emoji
- Conversation history: You can swipe back in time and relive all your favorite moments. (You can also turn off history, if you want.)
- Notification sync across platforms: Once you see a notification on one device, Hangouts will clear it from your other Android devices and computers. You can also snooze notifications when you don’t want to be interrupted.
- Support for video calls
Update: Can’t update to Google Hangouts from Talk on Android, a fix is on the way.

7 replies on “Google launches Hangouts, a unified messaging service”
I cannot install the hangouts. It gives me only “Open” option in the play store. No update out install.
If your phone is rooted, uninstall Talk using Titanium Backup. Fresh install Hangouts from Play Store.
@Harsha
https://androidos.in/2013/05/cant-update-google-talk-to-hangouts-on-android-fix-is-on-the-way/
Also, can you please share a screenshot of the Google Talk play store listing, which doesn’t show the update option, need to use in the above post. Thanks..
So, to use Hangout now we need to Root the phone. this sucks..
Nope, that is just a workaround. Talk will be automatically updated to Hangouts.
I tried to install hangouts, but it did show only to open it & directing me to old google talk, it says google talkis been replaced by ‘Hangouts’ but i didnt see the change. how can i get it., my phone is running jelly bean 4.1.2
P.S. i got update for set reminder in google now this morning.
@nitin check the link, I just shared in the reply of Harsha’s comment.