Google Splits Hangouts Into Two Apps. Pathetic!

[Guest Kloaked]

DIDN'T SEE THIS ONE COMING =)

 

 

Google is no stranger to making more communication apps than they know to do with - than we know to do with. To make things worse, they have now split Hangouts into two apps. Google talked about refocusing Hangouts to be more business oriented, but two separate apps? Really?

 

Quote

After the announcement of Duo and Allo, the newest in a long line of Google messaging apps, Google made it clear that Hangouts would be re-positioned for corporate use. Last month, a new 'Meet by Google Hangouts' app appeared on the iOS App Store, revealing that a major reworking for Hangouts was nearing completion. Now, Google has officially announced Hangouts Meet and Hangouts Chat.

Welp. This is why I'm disliking Android more and more and already made my mind up on switching to iOS when I'm due for an upgrade.

 

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First up is Hangouts Meet, a video-conferencing platform with the goal of making online meetings as painless as possible. Meetings can be started simply by sharing a link - no fiddling around with logins, plugins, or native applications. Up to 30 participants can join in from the web, the mobile app, or even with a dedicated dial-in phone number if you are a G Suite Enterprise customer.

Next is Hangouts Chat, which is far more like Slack or Microsoft Teams than the previous Hangouts application. It supports multiple virtual rooms for each topic, threaded conversations, integration with other G Suite services, and a filterable search.

This sounds all well and good, but this is not what Hangouts needs to be in my opinion.

 

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Although I think Meet and Chat are both drastic improvements over Hangout's previous video chat and messaging abilities, the original app's future is uncertain. I'm willing to bet Hangouts, despite being neglected, still has far more users than Allo and Duo. Hangouts is also still deeply-integrated with Project Fi.

While I agree with this, I still think that Google needs to stop treating their platform as a testing ground. I haven't used Android a long as some people (back when Google Voice first launched) and I'm already feeling the whiplash on decisions they're making.

 

This is utterly retarded, in my opinion. Just to remind you guys, a lead developer at Google thinks multiple apps are the "future".

 

 

 

So don't expect Google to ever merge all of their chat apps into one app that people can flock to and actually use.

[SCHISCHKA]

i cant remember the name but a few years ago they brought out a new messenger that could handle SMS. The issue was the original SMS app and the new google messaging would both issue alert notification and the google messaging app could not send sms to iphones. Google sucks at messaging

[SpaceGhostC2C]

43 minutes ago, Kloaked said:

 

If you ever need to understand Google's endless list of failures (Orkut, Wave, Plus...) or ruined things (Talk, Chrome, youtube, even the search page), or its constant disregard for users, remember this quote. It summarizes perfectly the mentality behind it all. 

[handymanshandle]

51 minutes ago, Kloaked said:

sniop

Oh boy Google...

?

[Sauron]

It used to be gmail chat and it was great. then it became garbage.

[Misanthrope]

21 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

If you ever need to understand Google's endless list of failures (Orkut, Wave, Plus...) or ruined things (Talk, Chrome, youtube, even the search page), or its constant disregard for users, remember this quote. It summarizes perfectly the mentality behind it all. 

I think that for that particular guy and his responses (which I suspect are commonplace on Google) They need to change their motto from "Don't be Evil" to "Don't be a condescending douchebag"

[silberdrachi]

There is one flaw to the android ecosystem in my opinion and it is literally this. Google has no clue what the fuck is going on when it comes to their messaging apps. And on the other side of the spectrum you have Apple's messaging system that is so tight and integrated with everything exactly the way it should be.

 

Fuck off google and just give us one app that does all google hangouts and integrates a functional SMS app. Is it really that hard? there are tons of apps on the Play store that are leagues better than something one of the largest software companies in the world produces.

[dtaflorida]

Still waiting for the messaging app bubble to burst. 

 

 What's that about a Snapchat IPO? Bubble still gettin bigger. 

 

Seriously, there's no money in messaging apps. 

[Doobeedoo]

It's just terribly bad. I disable so many of their apps on phone. Hangouts I tried it out and all but it's not there anymore. There are issues in their main apps yet they're slow for working on that instead.

[Teddy07]

No idea what a hangout but i assume it sucks

[Mooshi]

People use Hangouts?

 

I'll be over with the cool kids with Telegram and Discord.

[AlexGoesHigh]

2 hours ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

If you ever need to understand Google's endless list of failures (Orkut, Wave, Plus...) or ruined things (Talk, Chrome, youtube, even the search page), or its constant disregard for users, remember this quote. It summarizes perfectly the mentality behind it all. 

This kind of crap is why i think Google sometimes is on a horse higher that Apple, and oh boy is the Apple horse really tall.

[Kherm]

This quote by Brad Sams pretty much sums up Google's communication platforms. 

 

 

[MoonSpot]

3 hours ago, silberdrachi said:

 one of the largest -S̶o̶f̶t̶w̶a̶r̶e̶- advertising companies in the world produces.

FTFY.  It's not something you should ever forget.

[Guest Kloaked]

2 hours ago, AlexGoesHigh said:

This kind of crap is why i think Google sometimes is on a horse higher that Apple, and oh boy is the Apple horse really tall.

They're always on a high horse. People talk shit about Apple, but at least their shit works and mostly functions together.

[Scruffy90]

Taking bets for how quickly google kills off consumer hangouts. 

[MrRavens]

All I use from google for communications is Phone and Messenger. Allo sounds like it's still dying. I'm not hearing too many use Duo since skype has become such a big household name brand. I wonder what their plan is. 

[Guest]

I don't know why Google doesn't push Allo more. I mean, if you're taking away Hangouts from the consumer, and you have a pretty decent (IMO) messaging app, then why not tell everyone? Half the people I know haven't ever heard of Allo. Hangouts got some user base through their massive push for Google+ everywhere and Hangouts's G+ integration, but nothing like this seems to be happening for Allo.

[MrDynamicMan]

8 hours ago, dtaflorida said:

Still waiting for the messaging app bubble to burst. 

 

 What's that about a Snapchat IPO? Bubble still gettin bigger. 

 

Seriously, there's no money in messaging apps. 

I literally only use discord and whatsapp. There no need to use any more. Whatsapp is for the people I know IRL and discord is better as a platform for Internet friends. 

[Guest Kloaked]

8 hours ago, namandoesnotpanic said:

I don't know why Google doesn't push Allo more. I mean, if you're taking away Hangouts from the consumer, and you have a pretty decent (IMO) messaging app, then why not tell everyone? Half the people I know haven't ever heard of Allo. Hangouts got some user base through their massive push for Google+ everywhere and Hangouts's G+ integration, but nothing like this seems to be happening for Allo.

Android is very fragmented with the messaging platform, so of course people won't know what Allo is even after Google praised it from the rooftops.

[michaelocarroll007]

15 hours ago, Sampsy said:

I'm increasingly thinking google is in trouble. I always liked the fact that they use their advertising revenue to fund risky ventures as that's how real innovation happens. But more recently it seems that instead of funding well thought out projects they are throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. They lack a unified vision and there is a severe lack of coordination between different teams within the company. The company has grown so large so fast that clueless middle-managers like Justin Uberti are the ones determining the products on offer in the future. Their product base is still solid - I regularly use search, maps and android for example - but I haven't used a new google product in years.

 

For all the company's faults I really feel Apple's approach of producing a smaller number of highly polished products is far better. Apple's products are pretty much universally of high quality, share a unified vision and thus work seamlessly with each other. Meanwhile google is designing its nth messenger app which does the same thing as the other n-1 messenger apps.

Except when you buy an iphone and macbook and try to plug it into another. Lol But on the non sarcastic part. FUCK google just do a built in Messaging app including SMS thats seamless how many failed attemps will you take. i dont get it and its my biggest fustration with android.

 

Samsungs/tmobile messaging app now works well and just like an iphone but its way too limited in users.  You have to have both users on an S6 or newer updated firmware and on the tmobile network. works like a imessage clone at that point. which is all we need but google cant figure that out. 

[mrchow19910319]

11 hours ago, LtRavens said:

 

Skype is pretty buggy..

[MrRavens]

3 hours ago, mrchow19910319 said:

Skype is pretty buggy..

For sure, never the less, people still use it more than Duo. Google isn't really pushing enough marketing for me to think they are even trying hard enough lol. 

[mrchow19910319]

14 hours ago, LtRavens said:

For sure, never the less, people still use it more than Duo. Google isn't really pushing enough marketing for me to think they are even trying hard enough lol. 

True.

[testarossa47]

On 9.3.2017 at 10:07 PM, SCHISCHKA said:

i cant remember the name but a few years ago they brought out a new messenger that could handle SMS. The issue was the original SMS app and the new google messaging would both issue alert notification and the google messaging app could not send sms to iphones. Google sucks at messaging

I think ti actually was Google Hangouts that got SMS support a few years back