As an Android user, the new Hangouts app that replaced the Talk app feels like one step forward and four steps back (in terms of UX). The one step forward is t

As an Android user, the new Hangouts app that replaced the Talk app feels like one step forward and four steps back (in terms of UX). The one step forward is that the chat windows look prettier. The four steps back, from most annoying to least annoying: 1) Chat windows give me no indication of the presence of the other participant(s) in a conversation. If they sign off, I have no idea they've signed off. They frequently get messages from the tail end of a conversation much later, which is confusing for them. 2) The contact list is in alphabetical order, regardless of their presence. Talk used to separate online contacts from offline ones. This was nice because I have a lot of contacts in my gmail account, and only a dozen or so ever sign in to chat. There's no obvious way to change the sort in Hangouts. 3) The UI is higher latency. If I touch a notification in my tray, I often have to wait upwards of two seconds for the Hangouts app to load. The various screens within the app also take longer to load. 4) I used to have a custom notification set when I received a message. Hangouts replaced it with its own and there's no obvious way to change it back. I hadn't noticed Hangouts had abandoned XMPP. I find this rather unfortunate. Adium on my Mac still connects fine, but for how long?