
Google Hangouts 4.0: now simpler, faster, more beautiful - rey12rey
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2015/08/google-hangouts-now-simpler-faster-more.html?m=0
======
izacus
Of course, I still have to run Chrome just for a slow and terrible browser
interface on the desktop. Which was a major annoyance (especially since for
some reason using Safari extends battery life for a huge amount) that caused
me to switch to Telegram.

~~~
angryasian
>especially since for some reason using Safari extends battery life for a huge
amount

on a side note i see several people say this but using a 2015 mbp I don't
really see this battery draining behavior. Can anyone point to benchmarks or
has anyone actually done a real test on this assumption ?

~~~
runako
The BatteryBox folks did some tests and posted the results:

[http://blog.getbatterybox.com/which-browser-is-the-most-
ener...](http://blog.getbatterybox.com/which-browser-is-the-most-energy-
efficient-chrome-vs-safari-vs-firefox/)

>> TL;DR; If you’re a MacBook user, you’re losing an average of 1 hour of
total battery life by using Chrome. Firefox is a little better, but Safari is
the clear winner. You’ll want to use Safari if you want to get the most
battery out of your laptop.

------
ryandvm
Hangouts is "okay" at best.

I continue to be amazed that companies like Microsoft and Google are so bad at
instant messaging that upstarts like Slack can eat their lunch with
essentially hosted IRC and a pretty client.

~~~
justlurkin
I for one wish Slack was the new standard messaging app for everything and
everyone.

~~~
pbreit
At $5/person/month I don't think so.

~~~
justlurkin
I just like the way it works, it doesn't have to be Slack specifically.

------
avolcano
And here I was excited thinking that they'd finally fixed the terrible
performance and interface of the browser app.

~~~
e40
Yeah, the browser addon for Hangouts is literally the worst thing Google has
ever done, IMO. On the Mac it is even worse.

I would be seriously surprised if anyone at Google actually used this POS.

~~~
flinty
100% agreed. I use it because I have to not because I want to. It literally
messes up the command tab/command tilde behavior. This in addition to being a
terrible interface overall and the general nuisance of notifications not being
synced up with Android

------
shmerl
Does it support WebRTC phone calling from the browser?

Hangouts annoys me for a number of reasons however. And the biggest one is the
fact that Google used it as a pretense to kill their federated XMPP service.
This literally cut more than a half of my contacts off (i.e. those who use
Google), because they don't accept bugs for enabling server to server
encryption anymore.

I don't remember being upset about Google messing up things more than that.

UDPATE: Nah, still no WebRTC. Hangouts - fail.

    
    
        Hangouts needs the Google Talk plugin to make calls.

~~~
Nullabillity
Really? I'm 99% sure that it's been using WebRTC for about a year now.

~~~
shmerl
It might be using it partially, but it still relies on that plugin blob. No
idea why they can't use a pure WebRTC solution.

~~~
Nullabillity
According to what I can find it doesn't use a blob under Chrome. Perhaps it's
using a browser whitelist?

~~~
shmerl
I'm using Firefox.

------
Osiris
* It's about time. My wife complains about getting random SMS messages that turn out to be replies to group texts. She started giving out her direct cell number instead of her Google Voice number because of this problem. Hopefully with this she'll be able to use Voice exclusively.

~~~
endtime
I've been dogfooding this for a couple weeks, and I am very happy to be able
to say that that feature (finally!) works, at least for me. Used to drive me
nuts.

~~~
Navarr
Downloaded the APK - won't let me create MMS when set to always send from my
Google Voice, and when set to send from "Last number" group MMS is created
with my actual #.

I'm praying that it's a server side flag and not a case of Google Apps Free
users getting skewered somehow.

~~~
endtime
I use Google Apps Free for my personal account, so I doubt that's your issue.

But I don't think I've initiated any group MMSes, just received them (and
subsequently replied, which worked). You might be hitting a bug that I didn't.
:/

~~~
Navarr
Google recently confirmed that it's a server-side switch, so I'm guessing for
me it's just not enabled yet. They're waiting for the rollout to switch it on.

------
Zikes
The only features I want are setting availability status and getting online
notifications for contacts.

IMs have had those features for decades, and contrary to Google's narrow
worldview not everybody is online and available 24/7.

~~~
Lx1oG-AWb6h_ZG0
This post is about the android app. How do you define "online" when you're on
a phone with a data connection, an extremely common use case for this
scenario? (Or rather, what makes someone "offline" here?)

Maybe it's better to track whether the user is busy or free-to-interrupt,
which I think is what Google is already doing. (I believe there is also an
option to broadcast if you're on your phone or your desktop, although I don't
fully understand why it's that useful)

Edit: I looked up Google's documentation, and apparently they do indeed track
Online/Offline in the hangouts app [1], but from what I understand, installing
the android app with a data connection = online. I'm not sure what Offline
means.

I guess the parent is asking for notifications about the Online/Offline
change, which does not exist. (But again, if installing the app means you're
always Online in hangouts, you won't get any notifications anyway)

[1]
[https://support.google.com/hangouts/answer/3111918?hl=en](https://support.google.com/hangouts/answer/3111918?hl=en)

~~~
feld
Has the phone been sleeping / screen off / locked for a long time? Probably
"offline" or something else describes this better.

Is user actively using their phone? "online"

It's simple. IM clients have figured this out years ago.

~~~
buckbova
> Has the phone been sleeping / screen off / locked for a long time?

Mine has been sleeping for an hour, but I'm right next to it and would answer
an IM if sent.

So no, not so simple.

~~~
xd1936
That's why Hangouts has Online / Idle / Offline

------
livingparadox
I CAN FINALLY GET MMS MESSAGES WITH MY GOOGLE VOICE NUMBER!

Sorry for the caps. But that's been mildly annoying for a long time, so its
kind of exciting to finally have a complete messaging system on google voice.

~~~
semiquaver
MMS for photos and videos have been in google voice (when used via hangouts)
for about a year[1]. The (still very exiting) new feature is support for group
texts which piggyback on MMS. Previously incoming group texts would appear as
SMS messages from each individual recipient and it was not possible to send
messages to the entire group.

[1] [http://lifehacker.com/google-voice-gets-native-mms-
support-b...](http://lifehacker.com/google-voice-gets-native-mms-support-
brings-verizon-in-1656985058)

------
codebeaker
I just wish Hangouts would auto-archive Hangouts that I leave. The interface
for "Archiving" all the hangouts that I left on the web, or via the browser
extension is terrible, 4-5 clicks to archive _each one_. I keep the Android
app installed only so that I can use it's multi-select and archive-all
functionality.

------
aesthetics1
I personally have moved on to Google Messenger for MMS. It's simpler and
faster. I like the feature of being able to color-code my contacts in
conversations too. It just makes it a lot easier to read through a group text
that way.

Hangouts is cool and all, but I wish Google would just decide which app they
are going to push and get on with it.

~~~
mtgx
I don't think IMs and SMS/MMS texts should mix. Period. Leave the legacy stuff
to its own apps, and we just move on to new stuff without having to support
that legacy burden. It's exactly why I welcomed TextSecure killing the SMS
integration (it was even more annoying that it was asking you for it by
default, as Hangouts does, too).

~~~
tdkl
The mix would be great if Google wouldn't halfass it and made it like
iMessage. If user is on Hangouts and online, send Hangout message. If not
online/not on Hangouts, send SMS/MMS.

How hard can it be?

------
mintplant
Title could be updated to reflect that this only affects the Android app.

------
mrbig4545
They should just concentrate on making it work properly on android

The amount of times it thinks I'm in a call and I'm not is far too many. Or it
doesn't dial. Or doesn't ring. And if turn the video on there's a good chance
it'll crash so hard I'll have to force stop it.

Which is a shame as I really like hangouts

Also the sms part should be better integrated, why can't I view/send sms on my
phone from gmail?

------
lytedev
For anybody else looking for the APK, here's the relevant Android Police
article with a link to the APK.

[http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/08/10/dreams-do-come-
true-...](http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/08/10/dreams-do-come-true-
hangouts-4-0-for-android-will-start-rolling-out-today/)

------
nkoren
Can I actively control my visibility settings, as with every other IM client?
Inability to control my own visibility makes Hangouts an _absolute_ non-
starter for me, and many other people that I talk to. Our only choice is to
keep it turned off at all times. Which is a shame, because Google Chat used to
be my go-to messaging client.

------
abritinthebay
As long as it crashes less and makes their (woefully unstable) Chrome Boxes
need to be re-imaged/restored less... I'll take it.

Hangouts is nice when it works but it's become something of a swear word at my
work - even if it makes setting up a conference in a meeting room a lot
easier.

------
x0054
> (iOS users recently got many of the same updates).

How is it that Google is still "iOS first." I mean, I love my iPhone and am
happy that Google feels the need to update iOS apps before Android. But why?
That's like Microsoft being OSX First, it just doesn't make any sense.

~~~
Axsuul
Not necessarily. Google Hangouts is still a much integrated experience on
Android. iOS also doesn't have the Dialer app for example.

~~~
x0054
I am not super familiar with the Android App, but the iOS App does have a
Dialer that allows you to make phone calls. Are you talking about something
else?

------
omouse
and still backwards incompatible with XMPP? greeeat

------
codingvelocity
I sincerely hope they are fixing the mms integration. The default messaging
apps can handle mms from my carrier, hangouts has never worked properly with
my carrier for mms

------
msujaws
It looks like some of the user experience ideas from Google Messenger have
made their way to Google Hangouts. How long does Google plan on supporting two
Android SMS/MMS apps?

I've been using Messenger and it's pretty nice. I especially like the ability
to search through my messages, something that the Hangouts v4 screenshot
doesn't show.

------
verelo
Does anyone else find that, the awfully slow, Hangouts app (on Mac?) randomly
open every minimized window? If it wasn't integrated with gmail and we didn't
have everyone in the company already using it, Hangouts would be the first
product I'd move away from.

------
rcarmo
I wish they'd stop guzzling battery on iOS. On my iPhone, the two top
background activity apps are Facebook and Hangouts, neither of which (sadly) I
can actually get rid of since I use the first for work (seriously...) and the
second to be reachable to Android users.

~~~
yoasif_
XMPP continues to work for Google Chat, so there may be better iOS Google Chat
clients. Sorry, I haven't used any, so I can't offer any recommendations.

ChatSecure seems to offer OTR compatibility, so that may be a decent option:

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chatsecure-encrypted-
secure/...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chatsecure-encrypted-
secure/id464200063)

and should be compatible with OTR Jabber clients on Android like
Conversations.

~~~
rcarmo
XMPP works for Google Chat in the sense that you can talk to other people who
use Google Chat, but not Hangouts - at least not in my roster... So Hangouts
is effectively a segregated quasi-XMPP thing that follows its own rules.

So far, there are no real alternatives to Hangouts if you want to talk to
people using Hangouts, and that's it. And the XMPP third-party client
"ecosystem" is pretty much fossilised...

As to ChatSecure and other alternatives, they all seem somewhat iffy. Before
moving back to iOS, I wrote this:
[http://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2014/11/13/0830](http://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2014/11/13/0830)

...and it's still all mostly valid.

------
jtchang
Does anyone else think there is an opportunity for an easier to work with
chat/text program?

Ideally it would have a semi open infrastructure like IRC. I would design it
with less functionality than XMPP. The clients would be closed source. Or
maybe this is Telegram already.

------
daheza
I could never figure out if it is possible to do tabbed chat on the chrome
extension. All these windows makes me feel like I am using lync.

------
pbreit
I typically don't care about naming too much but "Hangouts" is so awful.

------
mtgx
Does it come with end-to-end encryption yet? It's a strange world we live in
where I feel my data is safer in a Facebook app than in a Google one.

~~~
yoasif_
"Critics are quick to point out that if a user is not paying for a product,
they are the product, and of course encrypting notifications from Facebook
won't stop the social media behemoth from accessing all the data itself. The
only way to protect one's data from Facebook is to stop using Facebook."

[http://readwrite.com/2015/06/03/facebook-pgp-
encryption](http://readwrite.com/2015/06/03/facebook-pgp-encryption)

~~~
briandh
Given the context, mtgx is most likely referring to Facebook-owned WhatsApp's
(somewhat opaque) support for end-to-end encryption.

------
eneve
thanks the gods.... hopefully it's better

------
V-2
> We’ve been obsessively fixing bugs and speeding up message delivery to make
> Hangouts faster and more reliable.

Well, that would be quite a feat if they managed to make it _less_ reliable.
The latest version I tried to use was ridiculously buggy, crashing, couldn't
join a conversation etc. I was so boggled by how bad it was (Google's app, on
Google's OS) I even forgot to be angry for a while

