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Google Hangouts For Consumers Will Be Shutting Down Sometime In 2020 (9to5google.com)
According to 9to5Google, Google Hangouts for consumers will be shutting down sometime in 2020. The news shouldn't come as too much of a surprise since Google essentially stopped development on the app more than a year ago. Thankfully, there are plenty of other Google messaging apps available, such as Allo, Duo, and Android Messages. From the report: Last spring, Google announced its pivot for the Hangouts brand to enterprise use cases with Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet, so the writing has been on the wall for quite some time regarding the Hangouts consumer app's demise. Meanwhile, Google has transitioned its consumer-facing messaging efforts to RCS 'Chat' and Android Messages following Allo's misadventures.
As mentioned, Hangouts as a brand will live on with G Suite's Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet, the former intended to be a team communication app comparable to Slack, and the latter a video meetings platform. Meanwhile, Google Voice calling, which was at first independent and then long integrated into Hangouts, was moved back out to its own redesigned app earlier this year. Interestingly, despite its forthcoming axing, Hangouts was one of a few apps to get early support for Android Auto's new MMS and RCS functionality, alongside Android Messages and WhatsApp.
As mentioned, Hangouts as a brand will live on with G Suite's Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet, the former intended to be a team communication app comparable to Slack, and the latter a video meetings platform. Meanwhile, Google Voice calling, which was at first independent and then long integrated into Hangouts, was moved back out to its own redesigned app earlier this year. Interestingly, despite its forthcoming axing, Hangouts was one of a few apps to get early support for Android Auto's new MMS and RCS functionality, alongside Android Messages and WhatsApp.
Started February 2015, so obviously 5 years later it shuts down.
I guess data mining the video for their AI projects was harder than they thought.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
I use it for people I communicate with regularly because it doesn't matter where I am...laptop, phone, tablet, etc. I can send and receive messages and it doesn't make a difference. SMS in a browser is pretty flaky still, and has a tendency to become detached at inconvenient times, and doesn't always send immediately.
I'm genuinely open to suggestions (I'm an android user, so no Apple only stuff) and Facebook messenger will be one of the last I consider.
...since the end of Windows Phone.
First you shoved it down our throats. We liked gtalk. Then you abandon it.
And why as a business would we want to use it??? You stopped development on it over a year ago!!! Itâ(TM)s not good enough for the plebes, so now your paying customers have to use it!?!?
Asshats.
No. I've been using it as my default messaging app since my Google Voice number is my primary number. I can send and reply to text messages from my computer with a full keyboard using the Hangouts Chrome app.
I've read that the replacement is supposed to be the new and improved Android messaging app:
https://gizmodo.com/how-the-ne...
Which of course may mean it's flaky from non-phone devices, but they're supposed to be switching to RCS as quickly as they can. Maybe RCS will be less flaky from a desktop/laptop than SMS. Not sure.
The problem is how long will we have the replacement... With Google it will be around for a couple years, and then they will drop it, and release something else. So don't get used to it or count it.
I gave my kid an old phone without sim card so he can contact me anywhere with wifi. Hangouts is a lightweight messenger that doesn't require cell #, like most do. I guess Skype can do the same but most others require a number.
While I hate hangouts with a passion I found the diamond in the rough. I can have two google voice numbers and know exactly where it comes from. So I use the GV app that directly calls my fone for personal and hangouts with VOIP for business :)
Android Messages doesn't have video chat. Google Allo does, but there is no desktop client.
Hangouts is great. Video, voice and text chat all in one place on mobile and desktop. Nothing else offers that.
Hangouts has some other unique features, like the way it handles group chats. It shows the webcam/avatar of whoever is talking using the volume level of each participant, and it really helps stop people talking over each other.
Damn it Google, why do you kill everything good? None of your other stuff comes close to Hangouts!
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I'm not against closed source apps but ones that claim to be privacy centric that remain closed are problematic to me.
What the hell does that mean? That the app will stop working, period, if you are just a consumer? That you will need some sort of contract with Google to get it work? And who/what is taking over its capabilities? The sorry Duo/Allo pair? Google Voice? No-one? Quite frankly, more and more it looks as though Google is run by very fickle, very stupid people that, outside the entrenched ad business that they have, are useless. Worse than useless, for they seem to have a knack for creating confusion apparently for no good reason. Probably Google managers striving to justify their (largely) unnecessary jobs. Larry, Sergey, are you having fun being mostly evil? And all for the sake of a few billions more, that you can't spend anyway?