#Google hangout im messenger for mac archive#
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I talk to my friends and work on projects for school. At the moment of writing this, I don’t have access to Hangouts’ revamped interface on Google+ and, occasionally, Hangouts messages sent from iOS aren’t being synced to Hangouts via Chrome.Google hangouts is a very good app and I use it all the time. Hangouts is also available as a Chrome extension, but the experience is limited to desktop popups that rely on Chrome notifications. (As an aside, the use of Roboto instead of traditional iOS Helvetica is peculiar, but in line with Google+) The second missing feature we promptly noticed is that, unlike Messages, Hangouts isn’t animating GIFs inline. My guess is that there are some initial issues with URLs and Hangouts, as – at least for our team – links aren’t always clickable on either iOS or the web. In other tests, I was able to paste tappable URLs, and the Hangouts app asked if I wanted to open them in Chrome or Safari (there’s no option to set a default browser for now). The issue was exacerbated by the fact that, because messages from the same person are stacked inside the same chat bubble if sent in rapid succession, it’s not easy to manually copy URLs either. Initially, we weren’t able to tap on URLs – a strange omission considering Google’s recent focus on letting its apps open web links with Chrome. In using Hangouts for our MacStories team chat, we immediately stumbled upon two interesting limitations of this first version. The app’s settings reveal more welcome options: you can snooze notifications (from 1 to 72 hours), block people, manage hangout requests, and add multiple accounts.

#Google hangout im messenger for mac archive#

You can also mute notifications for single hangouts (a feature that’s on my iOS 7 wish list), view a list of all people chatting, archive a hangout, disable its history, and leave it. A great feature of Hangouts is that you can add more people during an ongoing conversation – something that iMessage notoriously lacks – by heading to the Hangout Settings. Each hangout can be renamed, and the title bar will reflect the custom name alongside the number of participants. Messages come in and go out fast, with profile pictures displaying a typing indicator and acting as a shortcut to a person’s profile.

Messaging in the iOS Hangouts app has, so far, some pros and cons. The app seems to understand who your most important contacts are – they are displayed at the top of the New Hangout screen. The Hangouts app is integrated with Google+, so you’ll be able to find people by typing names, email addresses, phone numbers, or the name of a circle they’re in. The main screen of the app features a New Hangout menu for picking people that you want to hang out with. Once installed, the app will ask you to log into your Google account on my iPhone, I was also asked to confirm my phone number (a process that worked similarly to how WhatsApp handles it) and grant access to my iOS contact list. I have been able to try the app for a few minutes with the rest of the MacStories team. The Hangouts app for iOS is Universal and available on the App Store. Another key aspect of Hangouts, demoed at Google’s I/O conference earlier today, is the possibility of syncing notifications across devices: instead of buzzing multiple devices for a message that’s already been read somewhere else, Google will try to sync every Hangouts notification on mobile devices and the web (Hangouts is also available through Google+ and Gmail). While other messaging services such as WhatsApp, Apple’s iMessage, or Facebook Messenger focus on either text or static media, Google promises to leverage its experience with Talk and Google+ to provide a solution that encompasses all kinds of messages, including live video.

#Google hangout im messenger for mac full#

With Hangouts, users will be able to access their full history of conversations on any device, an option that can be turned off. The new Hangouts will unify Google Talk and Google+ messages under a single service, storing conversations in the cloud.

#Google hangout im messenger for mac free#

A free service that includes text, photo, and video messaging, Hangouts is a rebrand of Google’s former video-chat service for Google+. Rumored for the past few months, Google has today announced its new unified messaging system for iOS, Android, and web called “Hangouts”.