
Meet the new Hangouts - artsandsci
https://blog.google/products/g-suite/meet-the-new-enterprise-focused-hangouts/
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Navarr
I am nothing short of utterly and completely confused at what this means for
people using the consumer-facing Hangouts app right now.

Below is what I outline as "Best-Case Scenario":

* Google introduces Hangouts Meet and Hangouts Chat as new apps to get

* Current Google Hangouts turns into Allo somehow magically

I am currently a GSuite Free member - and use Hangouts to chat with friends,
old coworkers, my wife, etc. I literally have no idea what is going to happen
to me.

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fwn
Allo and Hangouts don't share the same identifier (email/phone number). I
believe that merging or converting is therefore probably impossible.

~~~
fl0wenol
There's also the issue of there being no option for non-cellular devices to
participate in Allo/Duo which limits their utility compared to traditional
Hangouts; they're promising a web client but it's all TBD.

I'm aggravated about it.

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tradersam
Google needs to get its shit together with all these messaging services.

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heroprotagonist
I would really prefer something other than a browser add-on for Hangouts'
desktop experience, and, more importantly, receiving incoming calls.

This is the primary reason I don't use Hangouts for incoming calls, despite
having reliability issues receiving incoming calls with Skype.

If I close the browser or the Hangouts window with the extension, there's no
indicator to tell if it's still running in the background. With no visible
feedback, like an icon in the system tray, it leaves me worrying whether it's
still working.

From what I tested with it, it'll keep running silently without a tray icon
after the browser profile is closed, but the alert for it is a desktop
notification without a sound, which is problematic. This slent alert with the
window closed disappears if you click anywhere into the notification pop-up
except the 'Answer' option. And when you do click "Answer", it doesn't answer,
it just opens the Google Hangouts app, which turns on sound and has you click
"Answer" a second time..

The solution there, I suppose, is to always have the window open or minimized,
taking up important real estate, but I'm a bit opinionated about my workspace
and think unnecessary windows should stay closed.

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deathhand
As Google tries to be more enterprise focused they will run into problems with
customer relations. How am I trust a meeting service where I can't get anyone
on the phone if there is a problem? Is it just assumed that Google's
reliability makes customer service issues a non-factor? This will be great for
tech startups but really a non-starter for 'old guard' types.

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vvanders
Yup, given their tendency to drop products and the lackluster support on the
consumer offerings it's hard to not take a wait and see approach.

(And before anyone jumps on me that consumer != enterprise, the culture of
support your company sets at your flagship products _will_ trickle down across
orgs and cross-pollinate with public perception at the same time).

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bastawhiz
What's up with the links on every other character of certain words?

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Androider
Am I some kind of idiot, or does neither the blog post or G Suite product page
for Meet give any indication of how I could launch Meet? The green CTA "Get
started" on the product page takes me to G Suite signup... when I'm already
using G suite and signed in. The Log In button takes me to the G Suite Admin
console. What.

~~~
RubenSandwich
So much for being 'effortless' to start a connection... It's also not clear to
me if this is only for people already using the G-suite or not, as the
previous Google Hangouts was open to everyone.

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niftich
Hangouts Meet: Webex, Bluejeans, GoToMeeting, Join.me, etc.

Hangouts Chat: Slack, Teams, etc.

What happens to the "old" Hangouts as included in GSuite? And what of Hangouts
in general?

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patbutcher
Does it need 100% CPU?

