Using Hangouts for SMS/Texts/MMS is really going to take some getting used to

[JohnnyBroccoli]

I don't see what is so confusing about hangouts? You have people you text message and people you message on google chat. Naturally, they are two different conversations b.c google chat is still a desktop client as well.

iMessage is a desktop client as well, yet iMessages and SMS are combined intuitively and cleanly. Not that there isn't other problems with iMessages though. I think what is confusing for some is that when you begin a new hangout and enter a contact name, both the phone number and email address (if you have one stored) show up as options. If you're not paying close attention, it wouldn't be hard to accidentally click the wrong one. Just gotta look for the SMS symbol though.

 

[giannim]

Probably a noob question but is there any way I could pull the TouchWiz Samsung messaging apk and use it on my Nexus 5 instead? I used my S3 for a while and I really liked the stock messaging app on there a lot more than the SMS apps on the play store. Is this even possible to do on my Nexus 5?

 

[joselito76]

Is simple and clean, but almost every time I opened it takes few seconds to populate stay on blank screen for those few seconds

Posted via Android Central App

 

[Gekko]

Hangouts is buggy. Just tonight i had a text message received from person X listed in conversatuon heading but Hangouts erroneously had person Y listed as the sender within the conversation. There were two distinct unique unrelated different text threads/conversations yet Hangouts mixed and jumpled the participants of the two unique threads/conversations. I'm still not sure the right person got the right reply. This could be very dangerous!

Very disappointing. Anybody else see this buggy confusing behavior yet?

 

[mumfoau]

Seems to be working decently enough for me with the group messages thankfully. I've switched to hangouts for SMS and all

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk

 

[Nuttz565]

Couple things I have noticed with Hangouts and MMS issues
1.I noticed on my PC I can add a video of any length to a hangout and it will upload it. It downgrades the quality a bit depending on the size of the video but it works. Now on my Nexus 5 you don't have this option, you can record a 20 second video before hand and then upload it but thats lame. I hope they do the same on the phone version like they do on the desktop in a future update.
2. If all else fails and you simply don't like Hangouts for your sms/mms I will suggest you try Textra. This sms/mms replacement app is the best I have seen on Android(and I have tried all of them). It has a very simplistic interface without all the extra bloat of others (Im talking to you GOsms!)with emoji/group messaging and even a fantastic gif upload feature that has 1000's of gif's to choose from.
Im really wanting to just use Hangouts as my all in one messaging/sms app and its almost there, almost.

 

[gidgiddonihah]

Probably a noob question but is there any way I could pull the TouchWiz Samsung messaging apk and use it on my Nexus 5 instead? I used my S3 for a while and I really liked the stock messaging app on there a lot more than the SMS apps on the play store. Is this even possible to do on my Nexus 5?

Don't know if it would run on any other device (could have some sort DRM feature) but you can use Titanium Backup to extract apps to you SD card. I can try with a friend's S3 when I meet up with them later.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[giannim]

Don't know if it would run on any other device (could have some sort DRM feature) but you can use Titanium Backup to extract apps to you SD card. I can try with a friend's S3 when I meet up with them later.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Awesome, please let me know how it goes. Thank you!

 

[mumfoau]

Shoot... Nothing seems to remedy my group texts issues. No messaging app I've tried consistently delivers all messages from my iPhone using in laws in our group conversation. They've tried then abandoned groupme! Oh well...

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk

 

[QWIKSTRIKE]

Couple things I have noticed with Hangouts and MMS issues
1.I noticed on my PC I can add a video of any length to a hangout and it will upload it. It downgrades the quality a bit depending on the size of the video but it works. Now on my Nexus 5 you don't have this option, you can record a 20 second video before hand and then upload it but thats lame. I hope they do the same on the phone version like they do on the desktop in a future update.
2. If all else fails and you simply don't like Hangouts for your sms/mms I will suggest you try Textra. This sms/mms replacement app is the best I have seen on Android(and I have tried all of them). It has a very simplistic interface without all the extra bloat of others (Im talking to you GOsms!)with emoji/group messaging and even a fantastic gif upload feature that has 1000's of gif's to choose from.
Im really wanting to just use Hangouts as my all in one messaging/sms app and its almost there, almost.

Textra is hands down one of the best apps out there. I tried 8ms and a few others, but immediately switched back to Textra. Texta allows multi messaging, and dark theme appearance texting. has good customization with colors, allows pop up incoming text so you may read the text and answer it. I can't believe that if ANYONE tried and learned to use Textra that they would want another app.

 

[aldo82]

I've got used to using hangouts then recently started trying out the other alternatives. Whereas before I didn't like hangouts, now its the other way round and things bother me about the other apps and I keep coming back to hangouts.

Textra is nice but I wish they followed the Android design guidelines. It's pretty ugly. Thought I liked evolve sms but actually I don't see it offering me anything that hangouts doesn't in an overall more complicated package.

Hopefully Google will keep updating hangouts to improve it further. Only thing I really wish it had was the ability to customise the led colour but then Google don't seem to bother with that in any apps so I'm using light flow

Posted via Android Central App

 

[alexlam24]

One thing I realized

It does not show a time stamp when I text my mom
It won't keep a message from sending, which sucks because it's hard to get a signal in my school. It just send the message and if there's no signal, it won't wait until there is one.

Sent from HTC Note Ultra Pro on T-Mobile

 

[Gekko]

Shoot... Nothing seems to remedy my group texts issues. No messaging app I've tried consistently delivers all messages from my iPhone using in laws in our group conversation. They've tried then abandoned groupme! Oh well...

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk

make sure their iPhone App Settings are set correctly -

By default, sending as SMS is not selected in IOS 7. To enable this go into settings>messages>send as SMS. This will send messages as regular SMS messages when imessage isn't available.

 

[srkmagnus]

Well, just went back to Handcent. I really like Hangouts for sms, but decided to go back with what I know best. I'll check back with Hangouts from time to time, and hope it continues to improve the sms aspect of the service.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[Mike Richmond2]

Is there any way of switching off the other messages than SMS? I just want to use it as a SMS tool (I don't use Google hangouts with anyone). Sometimes I accidentally send a message as a hangout, the other person doesn't get it, because nobody I know uses hangouts, and I only find out later.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[Mike Richmond2]

By the way, if I do accidentally start a hangout with someone's email address, aren't they supposed to get an invite, or something? The two times I have done it accidentally, the other person has insisted they got no notification. I tried it with an old email address of mine and got nothing. It looks like those messages just disappear with no clue given to the sender....

Sent from my Nexus 7 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[alexlam24]

I only like the emoji support

Sent from HTC Note Ultra Pro on T-Mobile

 

[mumfoau]

I only like the emoji support

Sent from HTC Note Ultra Pro on T-Mobile

Emoji support is cool! Seems like it's stick in 4.4's messaging app

Sent from my Moto X using Tapatalk

 

[numb3rmonkey]

Is there any way of switching off the other messages than SMS? I just want to use it as a SMS tool (I don't use Google hangouts with anyone). Sometimes I accidentally send a message as a hangout, the other person doesn't get it, because nobody I know uses hangouts, and I only find out later.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using AC Forums mobile app

In Hangouts tap Settings>Your Email>Sign out

All "Hangouts" are now SMS only.

 

[Gekko]

In Hangouts tap Settings>Your Email>Sign out

All "Hangouts" are now SMS only.

this must be new! thanks for this!