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Hangouts for iOS
- criley 13y agoIt's not even available on the Play store yet, that or it isn't available for my modern top of the line device :( EDIT: It's live now, it's a direct replacement for the talk app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.talk https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...
- corresation 13y agoI assumed that they were rolling out an update to Google+ that will have hangouts as a component of it. They talked about it under the context of Google+ with the statement "adds another icon". They do rolling updates for things like that so I would expect to it sometime this evening.
- criley 13y agoAwesome! I wonder if those of us stuck in TouchWiz 4.1.x hell will see the updates, or if they're 4.2+ like other improvements I've been waiting on.
- mtgx 13y agoI don't think so. It gives this error "We're sorry, the requested URL was not found on this server." when you go here: http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/hangouts/ http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/hangouts/ Plus, they'd include it in the iOS Google+ app, too, if they did that for Android. EDIT: It's working on Android now.
- corresation 13y agoPlus, they'd include it in the iOS Google+ app, too, if they did that for Android. Not necessarily. A single Android app can have multiple launcher icons with multiple activity entry points. Not sure if that is true for iOS apps, or whether Apple would approve such a design. Good catch on the URL, however the package name in the URL (com.google.android.talk) is actually for Google Talk, which is actually a part of....heck I don't even know -- it's just on newer devices as the base services.
- potatolicious 13y agoYou're correct. An iOS app has only a single icon and a single entry point. It makes total sense for Google to release this as a separate app. Not to mention iOS has been through the "kitchen sink" app design phase before, and it's too soon to revisit it. "Kitchen sink" apps tend to have overly deep, cumbersome UIs.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- tsycho 13y agoHangouts is a separate app for both iOS and Android, not part of Google+
- wting 13y agoIf you check the URL for Google Hangouts you'll notice it's pointing to the old identifier for Google Talk (com.google.android.talk): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.talk https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and... You'll notice this same link is used in multiple locations promoting Google Hangouts: http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/hangouts/ http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/hangouts/ It looks like they temporarily pulled the Google Talk app to transition everyone to Google Hangouts without needing users' intervention (except maybe upgrading the app). Edit: Just installed Hangouts app, it replaces Talk. Also it asked to confirm my phone number, hinting at future SMS support?
- notatoad 13y agoThe app requires permissions to send, receive, and read SMS and MMS messages. support is definitely coming.
- SEMW 13y agoNo, it's a standalone app that's being delivered as an update to google talk. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.talk https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...
- w1ntermute 13y agoIt's showing up for me: http://i.imgur.com/8ngB1gK.png http://i.imgur.com/8ngB1gK.png The app page itself isn't loading right now, but that just looks like a temporary issue.
- pplante 13y agoIf you are logged into Play on the webapp and click install, it will get automagically installed to your phone. Worked for me!
- amargulies 13y agoIs it just me, or is it not compatible with the nexus 7? Kind of a strange choice.
- numbnuts 13y agoNot just you. Anyone know why?
- ga0bi 13y agoFor those unable to find it in the iOS App Store: Search for a Google app (i.e. Google+) and click "Related". You'll find Hangouts in the See All list.
- emehrkay 13y agoKinda a non sequitur, but is this the flat design that everyone wants? Im not impressed.
- threeseed 13y agoHave to agree. It is surprisingly ugly. What happened to the consistent design we have seen with Google Now, Gmail etc ?
- fbeeper 13y agoNot supported on iPhone 3GS: no front-facing camera. I didn't expect that given "ALL your friends can use Hangouts" and "and no one gets left out".
- icesoldier 13y agoIs there a relation to Google Talk for those outside of Android/Gmail web? I was under the impression that every XMPP app on iOS just stopped working properly a year or so ago. (In fact, this was a primary reason my sister went from iPhone 4 -> GSIII last year, since she uses Talk extensively with her friends.)
- codev 13y agoI still use Trillian on iOS for Google Talk and it works fine.
- mey 13y agoI'm trying to find out info on how long that will be true. Having trouble finding a crediable source, but various news outlets are saying Nikhyl Singhal says xmpp is going away. That will screw over Trillian as well as several other clients. Edit: Removing info that isn't accurate.
- orbitur 13y agoIf that was the case, not anymore. On iOS, I'm using BeeJive for Google Talk and it works fine. Mo+ has an app as well.
- codev 13y agoI'm getting "Hangouts has not been enabled for your account". I'm guessing this is because my work account has Google+ disabled. So are you going to have to be on Google+ to use their messaging product now? Will they shut off Google Talk for regular gmail users?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- codev 13y agoTried it with a few more accounts - if you try to use it with a regular gmail account it says "Authentication error: Google+ is required". It's a little off that Larry Page was complaining about Microsoft not using open standards but then they go and introduce a totally new closed system within their closed social network.
- Hurdy 13y agoHangouts on Android does not need a Google+ account as far as I know. Not sure about iOS. On Gmail, you can definitely use it without a G+ account, but photo sharing and group video calls will not work. Also, Google Talk will not be shut down, you have to opt in to the Hangouts experience in Gmail.
- vinayan3 13y agoIf I use Adium on my Desktop and Hangouts on my phone will I see the group chats / google hangouts?
- film42 13y agoSo far it's syncing the messages sent and received via Adium. They show up in google+, although they're not automatically marked as read (though I've not yet received the google+ update). Images and hangout invites are not synced. I have yet to attempt a group chat. UPDATE: Photos will show in the messenger, or send you a link to a google+ page if you're on gchat.
- propelledjeans 13y agoYou're right for single messages, but I'm not seeing group messages in Adium.
- film42 13y ago"I have yet to attempt a group chat."
- propelledjeans 13y agoI'm not, at the moment. Let me know if I'm missing something.
- masnick 13y agoLike most new Google things, it doesn't seem to be enabled for my Google Apps account. There's no clear indication of how to do this (if it's possible at this point). Say what you want about Apple, but onboarding for iMessages and Facetime did not require navigating a byzantine admin panel. I understand that Google Apps is a different beast, but there's something to be said for a chat service _just working_ in the way that iMessages does: you put in someone's phone number (or email) and if they are registered it works. I recently tried to use my non-Google Jabber account with a friend who's on Gmail. Apparently Google no longer allows invites from non-Google Jabber accounts in the chat built into Gmail. Getting chat to work with a new contact even just between Gmail accounts would sometimes require some pretty opaque incantations -- and with external Jabber accounts it's even worse! There's no indication that your invite didn't go through to them, and I was never able to get his invite to come through to me. tl;dr Based on my prior experience with Google and their IM products, I'm not convinced this could be an iMessage/Kik/WhatsApp replacement. Will my mom be able to use it?
- 6thSigma 13y agoYou are comparing a company launching on its own platform to a company launching on someone else's closed platform.
- masnick 13y agoI understand this; that's what I meant by "I understand that Google Apps is a different beast". Regardless, to the average end user this distinction doesn't matter. I think users will gravitate to what works well and what their friends use. I really hope this is Google Hangouts instead of Facebook Messages (ugggh). iMessages has problems of its own (TERRIBLE sync between devices), but it has the huge advantage of working for everyone with an iDevice. What I really want: 1) a service that works seamlessly between any device (like iMessages is supposed to for iOS and OS X) 2) this service should be platform-agnostic, working on any computer or mobile device 3) it should be federated like Jabber so we don't have to depend on one company 4) comparable features with the existing services: read receipts, group chat, push notifications I hope Google Hangouts is exactly this, and that they let me enable it for my Google Apps account.
- MatthewPhillips 13y agoCan we talk about the icon. I am not a designer but quotes inside of a word balloon? Don't word balloons and quotes have the same purpose?
- Nowyouknow 13y agoIt's a conversation within a conversation. /s
- jbrooksuk 13y agoConception...
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- ryanglasgow 13y agoAgreed. The icon is as generic as it gets, and feels really cheap. I'm surprised they didn't stick with their other app icon branding, which is a solid color with a white icon.
- msh 13y agoI don't understand why they only have video and no voice only. I use voice a lot, almost never video.
- FreeKill 13y agoI agree. Voice was very handy, especially from the desktop versions...
- DannoHung 13y agoWhat's the difference between this and Hangouts in the Plus app?
- evilduck 13y agoGTalk (or GChat) integration/unification.
- untog 13y agoThis is something that I hope Google work on and clear up- on Android it's the same, in that I have both the Messenger app, Google+ app (that links to Messenger) and the new Hangouts app. There clearly only needs to be one. I also haven't got the new Hangout-style chat in Gmail- only on G+. I hope they are intending on porting over.
- jhsu 13y agonifty, it pushes notifications to pebble watch.
- farhanpatel 13y agoI know this is a nit-picky thing but why does this app require 6.1 or later? Thats a funny move. 6.0 I can understand. What functionality could they have in 6.1 that made them have to require it?
- mitchty 13y agoThey might have just targeted the 6.1 sdk and decided not to deal with the 6.0 issues. For new things it is actually a good idea as 6.1 is quite a bit better than 6.0 in things like core data.
- nspragmatic 13y agoThe only changes made were in MapKit and UIKit. https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#releasenotes/General/iOS61APIDiffs/index.html https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#releasenotes/Genera...
- mitchty 13y agoDoesn't mean there weren't any. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15550861/nssortdescriptor-to-sort-by-number-of-items-in-core-data-to-many-relationships http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15550861/nssortdescriptor... I find random differences far too often.
- 0x0 13y agoWhy would you be stuck at iOS 6.0 when 6.1 is a quick over-the-air upgrade for all iOS 6.0-compatible devices?
- zefhous 13y agoNot a great first experience on the iPad for me. 1. Launch app in landscape. Oh, I guess they don't support landscape orientation for signing it. That's annoying. 2. Change orientation to portrait and sign in. 3. A dialog requesting to send push notifications appears — in landscape orientation (http://cl.ly/image/2t2P0X3f2H2Z http://cl.ly/image/2t2P0X3f2H2Z) — but I'm still holding it in portrait and the rest of the UI is in portrait as well. 4. I have to step through a bunch of screens that I just went through when I signed in on my iPhone. These are not related to local settings, but to my Google account. Why do I have to go through these again?
- untog 13y agoThat screenshot you show would surely be an iOS issue, not an app-specific one?
- zefhous 13y agoI think their app isn't handling orientation changes properly. I signed out and tried it again and I can consistently reproduce the bug. If I am signed out, the app will never launch in landscape orientation. If I am already in landscape orientation, I can sign out and see the login screen in landscape as I should. However as soon as I rotate to portrait, I can no longer get back to landscape. As an iOS developer, this definitely seems like a problem with the app itself and I've not experienced this elsewhere.
- potatolicious 13y agoIt's an app-specific problem. This is most likely due to an improperly implemented handler for orientation change events - if the currently displayed View Controller does not respond to the correct config callbacks the OS can get into a state where it presumes an orientation mode is supported, but the UI itself is rendering in that orientation - and thus all OS-level UI will render rotated.
- cremnob 13y agoI deleted it after I found out it requires you to have a Google+ account. I guess I shouldn't have had my hopes up considering it's called Hangouts.
- bonaldi 13y agoSo there's no presence/status notifications? I'll miss that when this hits GMail.
- FreeKill 13y agoAgreed, that's easily 50% or more of what I used google talk for. It was a way of knowing when people were back at their desk and could be reached to discuss something. This new solution is more like SMS messaging, where you send off a message and just hope they are there and respond right away if it's urgent.
- heyheyhey 13y agoYou can vaguely tell that someone is online by their icon being a bit brigher but it's a terrible solution. This just tells me that they want the Hangouts app to be straight up texting app as opposted to an instant messaging app (like Gtalk). No obvious feature of seeing people online and no concept of a "buddy list."
- timothya 13y agoOnline users are shown with a green bar under their photo. Inside the conversation, if someone is faded out then they are not there, but an unfaded image shows when they are currently in the conversation.
- bonaldi 13y agoOnline isn't the same as "available". A green dot in GChat means actively saying "you can interrupt me". A red dot means "this better be important". Currently about 2/3 of my GChat list is "away". There's a whole world of etiquette here that they're throwing away.
- timothya 13y agoI think they are trying to move more towards the long-lived conversations, where it shows you if the person is there and willing to be interrupted (the green bar), or they simply are not necessarily there to answer right now (because they are away from their computer, or they are in do-not-disturb mode). I realize that this is missing the middle "busy" state, but I don't really think that's a big loss. It used to be that when you sent offline messages it would end up as an email to them. Now when you send messages and they aren't in the online mode you can just assume that they'll see the message at the time of their choosing and respond then.
- phmagic 13y agoSeems like this was cobbled together for Google I/O. The experience is lacking.
- caycep 13y agohangouts was cool at 1st. Now it's kinda cool in that you can hang out w/ your favorite computer science academics but that is about it...
- jbrooksuk 13y agoI'm not really sure this works. My colleague apparently messaged me last night, I didn't get any notifications. So this morning I started a new Hangout (text-only) and he got nothing either.
- jbrooksuk 13y agoAha! Finally had an email, over 10 hours after he first sent the message. It took an hour after I created a new Hangout with him for the message to even get to him.
- martinpannier 13y agoGoogle's answer to Facebook Messenger… I'm surprised, I would've expected that they start out in this category by buying WhatsApp.