

Hangouts for iOS - zacharytamas
https://itunes.apple.com/app/id643496868?mt=8

======
zefhous
Not 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>) — 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
That screenshot you show would surely be an iOS issue, not an app-specific
one?

~~~
zefhous
I 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.

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masnick
Like 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
You are comparing a company launching on its own platform to a company
launching on someone else's closed platform.

~~~
masnick
I 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.

~~~
mcintyre1994
Other than number 3, this seems to match hangouts, assuming it works as they
say (in a way iMessage doesn't seem to for you). The killer missing feature
for me is SMS though, a vast majority of people cannot use Hangouts for the
vast majority of their conversations because of the Google+ requirement.

~~~
masnick
You're saying you'd like SMS integration? So if you add your friend with a
dumb phone to your Hangout, they can participate via SMS?

That would be awesome. I have a few friends with dumb phones that are
constantly left out of iMessage conversations. I feel bad about it, but not
bad enough to inconvenience myself (or pay for an SMS plan; yes I'm a terrible
person).

Edit: The federation thing is probably a pipe dream. No one has an incentive
for supporting a federated protocol -- at this point it's either existing
platforms going for lock-in (the iOS lock-in caused by iMessages is huge; it's
the biggest reason I don't consider Android). I guess what I really want is
iMessages that works on Android and over SMS, and doesn't suck at syncing
between devices.

~~~
mcintyre1994
Sure, that's one use of it. But also friends with smartphones but not Google+,
those I communicate with by SMS or WhatsApp primarily at the moment, the
majority of my contacts. It's not even that I want rid of my SMS plan,
although I can definitely see the benefit of that too.

We basically want the same thing - iMessages that works on Android, iOS and
desktop, including SMS. Google are brilliant at sync and I have no doubts
that'll work great (especially now with synced notifications). If they added
SMS and starting a conversation by phone number (selecting from contacts
obviously), it'd be the perfect messaging app in my opinion.

EDIT: Hangouts on web only work with Chrome, so that rules out a lot of
devices I thought were supported. Not a big deal for me, but I guess it could
break your requirements depending.

~~~
florbs
Hangouts on web should work on other browsers too, obviously some better than
others, but work nonetheless.

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codev
I'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?

~~~
codev
Tried 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.

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MatthewPhillips
Can 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
It's a conversation within a conversation. /s

~~~
jbrooksuk
Conception...

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emehrkay
Kinda a non sequitur, but is this the flat design that everyone wants? Im not
impressed.

~~~
threeseed
Have to agree. It is surprisingly ugly.

What happened to the consistent design we have seen with Google Now, Gmail etc
?

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DannoHung
What's the difference between this and Hangouts in the Plus app?

~~~
untog
This 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.

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msh
I don't understand why they only have video and no voice only. I use voice a
lot, almost never video.

~~~
FreeKill
I agree. Voice was very handy, especially from the desktop versions...

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ga0bi
For 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.

~~~
orbitur
Ran into this and solved by searching for just "hangouts".

~~~
tagabek
I could not seem to find it through both methods. I ended up going to the Top
Charts and found it as #9 in the Free section.

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bonaldi
So there's no presence/status notifications? I'll miss that when this hits
GMail.

~~~
timothya
Online 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
Online 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
I 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.

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fbeeper
Not 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".

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icesoldier
Is 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
I still use Trillian on iOS for Google Talk and it works fine.

~~~
mey
I'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.

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phmagic
Seems like this was cobbled together for Google I/O. The experience is
lacking.

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farhanpatel
I 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
They 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
The only changes made were in MapKit and UIKit.

[https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#releasenotes/Genera...](https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#releasenotes/General/iOS61APIDiffs/index.html)

~~~
mitchty
Doesn't mean there weren't any.

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15550861/nssortdescriptor...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15550861/nssortdescriptor-
to-sort-by-number-of-items-in-core-data-to-many-relationships)

I find random differences far too often.

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jbrooksuk
I'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
Aha! 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.

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martinpannier
Google's answer to Facebook Messenger… I'm surprised, I would've expected that
they start out in this category by buying WhatsApp.

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vinayan3
If I use Adium on my Desktop and Hangouts on my phone will I see the group
chats / google hangouts?

~~~
film42
So 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
You're right for single messages, but I'm not seeing group messages in Adium.

~~~
film42
"I have yet to attempt a group chat."

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caycep
hangouts 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...

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jhsu
nifty, it pushes notifications to pebble watch.

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criley
It'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.and...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.talk)

~~~
corresation
I 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.

~~~
mtgx
I 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/>

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
_Plus, 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
You'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.

