Droid Life

Tag: Hangouts

  • Google Chat Gains Support for Messaging Non G Suite Users

    Google Chat Gains Support for Messaging Non G Suite Users

    Google Chat, the app formerly known as Hangouts Chat, will pick up wider usability starting today. After having been locked to conversations between G Suite users since it launched three years ago, Google’s business-focused messaging service will now allow users inside of organizations to chat with users outside of them.

    To clarify, Google did not give regular ol’ folk the access to Google Chat they may want. Instead, Google Chat is still only available to G Suite users, but those G Suite users can now chat with people through Chat that are not in their organization. I know this sounds confusing, just try reading that back through a couple of times.

    There are two things to be aware of here as far as the rollout goes. First, Google says that “Existing classic Hangouts conversations appearing in Chat” will gradually rollout starting today and could take up to 15 days before you’ll see them. For the ability to start new chats with external folks, that won’t start until May 26.

    When you do see all of this happen, folks in conversations that are not a part of your organization will be labeled as “External.”

    Google Chat External

    If you are a G Suite admin or know one, tell them to head into the G Suite admin panel and search for “Chat externally” or run through Apps>G Suite>Hangouts/Google Chat and look for “External Chat Settings.”

    Google Play Link: Google Chat

    // G Suite Updates

  • Google Brings Together All of Its Messaging Apps Under One Unified…Team

    Google Brings Together All of Its Messaging Apps Under One Unified…Team

    Let’s just get this out of the way before we get too deep here – Google did not just launch or announce a single unified messaging app that all will love and use going forward. Today, though, Google has announced that it now has a leader and unified team to take care of their communications products. What does that mean? Let’s find out!

    Going forward, according to The Verge, Google’s communications efforts will be run by Javier Soltero, a semi-recent hire who originally took over the VP reigns of G Suite. Soltero is now (also) the boss of communications products, like Messages, Duo, and the Google Phone app, as well as the teams that support them. Since he runs G Suite, that means he has Google Meet and Google Chat.

    At this time, it sure sounds like Soltero and his team are not planning to integrate messaging apps into one another to create the ultimate messaging tool for you, which I think is what we all want. Instead, Soltero and friends want to try and create clarity over what each of their products does and why it might be best for you. With everyone together under one umbrella, they think they can do that.

    Oh, Soltero did say that their plan “continues to be to modernize [Hangouts] towards Google Meet and Google Chat.” I have no idea what that means, so the clarity thing is off to a weird start.

    If you had questions about how this shakes up leadership, here is the statement that Google has provided on the news:

    We are bringing all of Google’s collective communication products together under one leader and unified team that will be led by Javier Soltero, VP and GM of G Suite. Javier will remain in Cloud, but will also join the leadership team under Hiroshi Lockheimer, SVP of Platforms and Ecosystems. Outside of this update, there are no other changes to the personnel and Hiroshi will continue to play a significant role in our ongoing partnership efforts.

    OK, so what are we taking away from this? I don’t know, man. Google didn’t announce any new products, only that they have a single leader for all things communications. That could mean a better presentation of their communications apps that might help you figure out which of them you should use. I just hope it means Google Inbox returns…wait.

    // The Verge

  • Not That It Matters, But Hangouts Meet is Now Google Meet (Updated: Chat Too)

    Not That It Matters, But Hangouts Meet is Now Google Meet (Updated: Chat Too)

    Hangouts Meet, a Google video conferencing/meeting service from 2017 you likely have never used because it has been an exclusive to G Suite customers, will operate under a new name going forward. Say hello to Google Meet.

    Google made a quiet announcement for Google Meet this week by changing support pages from “Hangouts Meet” to “Google Meet” and also promoting the new name on its Google Cloud blog. It all comes as a part of a fresh push for customers (including those in a classroom setting)  to consider using Meet for their video chatting and conferencing needs during this pandemic.

    Google says that the branding of “Hangouts Meet” is or will soon be retired, but that the new name will slowly rollout. Name a more obnoxious duo than Google and slow rollouts.

    What does this mean for you and the future of Hangouts? Nothing really. Hangouts still exists for regular ol’ consumers, while Hangouts Chat is still a G Suite service that I doubt many use. Some day, Hangouts Chat could be available to consumers or maybe Google will rebrand it as well to “Google Chat.” They probably will do that, but nothing has been announced today.

    • UPDATE 4/9: Google confirmed to The Verge today that Hangouts Chat is now Google Chat. Why was this so hard?

    To recap, Google’s Hangouts Meet, which you probably weren’t using, is now known as Google Meet.

    // Google Cloud | Android Police

  • Gmail Might be Down, Plus Hangouts and Drive and More (Updated)

    Gmail Might be Down, Plus Hangouts and Drive and More (Updated)

    Yep, Gmail is down (for some).

    Noticed that your Gmail isn’t quite acting like you want it nor is Google Drive or Hangouts Chat/Meet? That’s because there is a pretty major Google outage at the moment.

    On Google’s G Suite Status Dashboard, they have acknowledged that a bunch of products are being investigating after reports of issues from users. The entire list includes Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Hangouts Chat, Hangouts Meet, the Admin console, and Google Classroom.

    • UPDATE 9:33AM: Google just added Calendar and regular Hangouts to the list of affected services.
    • UPDATE 9:46AM: According to Google senior VP of engineering Urs Holzle, there was a router failure in Atlanta that affected traffic in the region. That has been addressed and “things should be back to normal now.”

    • UPDATE 2:00PM: And now we have a statement from a Google spokesperson on the root cause of the issue:

    “Some of our users experienced a service disruption today, as a result of a significant router failure in one of our data centers in the South Eastern US, causing network congestion. As a result, Google services running in that data center were directly impacted and were unavailable until our engineers rerouted the traffic and moved those services to alternate facilities. Users in the South Eastern US may also have seen temporary difficulties in accessing a wider range of Google services due to the network congestion. For more details, please visit our status dashboard (Google Cloud Status Dashboard).”

    Since Google is only investigating, we don’t know how long things will be affected or what the issue is. But again, if you noticed your Google apps acting funky, Google is looking into.

    We’ll update this post as this develops. For now, keep checking Google apps status here.

  • Hangouts Sees Rare Update, Removes Location Feature

    Hangouts Sees Rare Update, Removes Location Feature

    Google Hangouts is a service without much of a future, we were told so long ago. It continues to remain active, though, even if Google refuses to fix it, improve it, or make it into the app we were once promised. And now, it seems they have stripped away another feature.

    An update hit Google Hangouts on Android today as build 32.0.297021247, and after comparing it to the previous build, I can see that it no longer has the location sharing feature it has had for years. That means if someone asks for your location, you won’t see the easy smart share of it or be able to tap the icon to manually point to a spot.

    That sucks. I actually still used that damn feature.

    When is Hangouts going to officially die and when will Google let us into Hangouts Chat? Who knows, man. We thought that transition might go down months ago, but Google extended the life of regular Hangouts to at least June of this year. Should that move happen in June, we’ll still likely have access as consumers for a while after that. Maybe Hangouts is here for the long haul after all. Hah.

    Google Play Link

  • Report: Google is Making Some Sort of Unified Communications App

    Report: Google is Making Some Sort of Unified Communications App

    Blackberry used to have this unified inbox service or app that let you combine communications from a variety of services. It was super handy as a catch-all location for all of the notifications that came from messaging or email apps. According to a new report, Google may be working on something similar.

    The Information is reporting today that Google is making a mobile application for its business or G Suite customers that “brings together the functions of several standalone apps,” like Gmail and Drive, Hangouts Meet and Chat.

    It’s hard to know what that means exactly. Will you be able to respond to emails through this app? Will you be able to access documents and video calls and conversations too? Why do that within a single app and not just from notifications you get from those apps separately?

    The details here are scarce, but I can imagine it’s because of the popularity of apps like Slack, that have integrations with all sorts of services. Or maybe Google is bored again and needs to come up with another new way to communicate. Who knows.

    It sounds like to start, this new app will be a part of G Suite, so you may never see it. After all, we’re still waiting on Hangouts Chat to open up to consumers.

    // The Information (Subscription) | The Verge

  • Google Extends Life of Classic Hangouts to June 2020 for Some

    Google Extends Life of Classic Hangouts to June 2020 for Some

    We know that Google Hangouts will die one day and that most of us will have the opportunity to transition over to something else, possibly Google’s Hangouts Chat. Today, though, the death of classic Hangouts has been given somewhat of an extension for select users that were originally going to be impacting by its demise as early as October of this year.

    Google announced this morning that G Suite customers who use classic Hangouts will no longer have to worry about transitioning over to Hangouts Chat in October. Instead, because a whole bunch of G Suite customers told Google that they needed more time, Google is postponing any sort of final transition date to “no sooner than June 2020.” In other words, October is out as far as forced transition and June 2020 is when you should think about getting your organization in order.

    In the mean time, Google says that it will continue to try and improve Hangouts Chat with things like read receipts and a smoother transition experience from its classic brother.

    Want to transition to Hangouts Chat sooner? Google still has its Accelerated Transition Program that will let you do just that, assuming you can get in. I’ve tried for months to get in and no luck, so best of luck there. In the 1st half of 2020, Google will let “anyone” transition to Hangouts Chat while also simplifying Chat and classic Hangouts settings in G Suite admin consoles.

    To read more on Hangouts transitions timelines, check out this support page.

    Not a G Suite customer and are confused? That’s cool! All you need to know is that business-type Hangouts users just got an extension before they have to move over to Hangouts Chat. For those who just use Hangouts with their personal Gmail accounts, you don’t have anything to worry about right now. Google has not given us a date for when you might need to leave classic Hangouts. My guess is that it’ll be shortly after they force their G Suite customers off of it.

  • I Feel Trapped by Google Hangouts

    I Feel Trapped by Google Hangouts

    The writing has been on the wall for Hangouts for longer than I can remember and yet here I am, writing a piece about it. I’m not necessarily writing about its death, though, because we know it’ll live on in some form or another through Hangouts Chat or as the poorly supported and dated version we have now. Instead, as the title suggests, I just want to talk about how I feel trapped by it even as there are more than a couple messaging services that should probably replace it on my phone.

    I’d say that 90% of my digital communication with friends and family happens through Google Hangouts. I’ve been so heavily invested in Hangouts that some of the group conversations have years’ worth of history. When it was introduced in 2013 (!), I talked everyone into making the switch to it and they did. It was an easy switch because Google let you jump into it with your Google account and made an app available to everyone out of the gate. Since almost all of us have Google accounts, finding friends or starting conversations was dead simple. It supported multiple accounts and worked on as many devices as you needed it to, with full syncing between them all.

    As Google turned its focus to Hangouts, they told us it was everything. It was getting SMS. It was the future of Google Voice. With every mention of Hangouts in that first year, it became easier and easier to invest in it as the messaging platform for me and those I talked the most with. Of course, that was six years ago and a whole bunch of stuff has happened since.

    Google decided it wanted to compete with WhatsApp so it created and then killed Allo. It told us Hangouts wouldn’t die because of Allo, only to admit a couple of months later it wouldn’t see much support and would get a business focus instead. That focus led to Hangouts Chat and Meet in 2017, all while regular Hangouts suffered. Hangouts Chat might takeover for regular Hangouts next year on some level, though that’s not a guarantee. Google would rather you use their Messages app with RCS, a more advanced version of SMS. The problem there is that RCS is being held up by your carrier and the rollout is an absolutely frustrating disaster. Google is reportedly working on advancing RCS on its own, but I have my doubts on that happening here in the US.

    But that’s just what Google has going on. Where I bring this back to feeling trapped is when I talk about how I’m getting the urge from the industry to switch to something else, something non-Google. You see, encryption is the new hotness in messaging. There are apps like Signal and Telegram that want you to feel secure as you have private conversations. Even Facebook is out here saying that Messenger will soon be encrypted, something that I’m not sure Hangouts has ever considered. Allo wasn’t really secure either, and I don’t think anyone would claim that RCS is. But is switching to one of these a process I want to take on? Should I care about message security?

    Settling on one would probably take a bit of research, and that’s fine. I’ve already spent some time with the various apps from Telegram and Signal. Assuming I find one that I like, that’s when the really hard part happens and is probably why I’m writing this post – getting everyone I know on Hangouts to switch over sounds like hell. Because to do that, everyone would have to trust my decision over which app to use (or maybe I ask for their input, which creates more work) and then have to install them and become comfortable with them on the operating systems they use.

    Do any of them care, though? While I’m out here thinking it’s time to find a new messaging solution, they’ve used Hangouts since 2013, so why switch now if it still “works?” Do I need to sell them on why secure messaging is going to be better, even if they aren’t all criminals with shady ongoing conversations? Is there even an app that offers a similar-enough experience to Hangouts? Because that’s one of the good parts about hangouts – it doesn’t really suck and still does almost everything you need it to, outside of having SMS and offering encryption.

    I also have to consider that some people may switch and some may never. Some of my friends may already be using WhatsApp and I want to use Signal. If I decide to switch, I then run into the possibility that I not only have to maintain a list of people on Signal, but there are the Hangouts leftovers, the SMS friends in my Google Voice, and some who chose another app. I don’t want to maintain conversations in 4 or 5 different apps. If I stay with Hangouts, well, things just stay simpler and the same…for now.

    Maybe part of it is that I’m jealous of Apple and iMessage. I want a single app to do it all that’s there within the operating system, that everyone can use, that just works. And maybe that’s foolish to want in 2019, it’s just that Google was close to that with Hangouts. Google had a perfectly well-rounded messaging application that (almost) did it all. I think we were all pretty happy with Hangouts, although there are some things that could have been done to make it better.

    But now, us Hangouts users are kind of left stuck in this weird place where the future is murky and we might need to make a decision over whether or not to make a big change. I might need to capitalize “BIG” there, because messaging apps aren’t like calendar or note-taking apps or calculators or even email apps. You often need people on the other end to use the same app in order to talk to them. Swapping them out for the new fresh thing isn’t easy.

    Ugh. What a tiring topic to discuss. Thankfully, I don’t need to make a decision today, but I know I might in the next year. And again, that’s why I’m feeling uneasy. That’s why I’m feeling trapped.