Hangouts/Google+ updates

[Powerplaygraphix]

So, with the announcements yesterday of SMS client support in Hangouts (as well as animated GIFS and Location sharing) and the other new features announce for Google+ with the Video and Photo editing, I wonder how much it will help growth on the platform. Of course the iOS update had Google Voice support and maybe that will be baked in too. I use Hangouts a lot now to talk to family and groups that I'm part of and to automatically back up my photos and videos from my phone. It's really nice to be able to instantly go to my images from any computer and access the full size images without having to manually retrieve them. I will be interested to see how the SMS implementation is handled, but it could prove to be the "killer" feature to push Hangouts to more people. I like the fact that it works completely across all platforms. Whether I'm at my computer or my phone, or my niece's iPad or my brother's iPhone or even folks on crackberries or Windows, everyone can "Hangout" without the exclusivity of platform like iMessage or the limitations of BBM. I think the real key will be how fluid and responsive it is at full blown implementation.

 

[Mosov]

Does this mean that hangouts will become like iMessenger in iphone? In that, you can send free texts to people who have hangout as well...

 

[ttwiitch]

Does this mean that hangouts will become like iMessenger in iphone? In that, you can send free texts to people who have hangout as well...

Yes

Sent from my SPH-L710

 

[Powerplaygraphix]

The SMS functionality should work by sending to ANYONE. Hangouts already is free messaging Hangout to Hangout. SMS functionality means you can send to anyone.

 

[Mosov]

The SMS functionality should work by sending to ANYONE. Hangouts already is free messaging Hangout to Hangout. SMS functionality means you can send to anyone.

Well of course you can send hangout to hangout free, but the big difference is that you and the other person need to have internet connection. The question is sending hangout message via the phone network like anyother sms, but the difference is that it's free. I believe that's how iMessenger works...

 

[dmiller440]

I have 2 questions.

1. Would the SMS be able to work on lets say the N7(w LTE) instead of just my smart phone? could I see the same SMS txts on both devices? or is this going to be through an actual phone # associated with each device? would be great if associated to my gmail account so the sms shows up on all logged in devices.

2. I recently received an email to confirm phone # for hangouts. I received a messsage and hit confirm, and it would send me some code via SMS with no way to implement it and would say "Not Confirmed" Just today, I tried again, and it did not send the message but said confirmed. Anyone know What is happening here?

Well of course you can send hangout to hangout free, but the big difference is that you and the other person need to have internet connection. The question is sending hangout message via the phone network like anyother sms, but the difference is that it's free. I believe that's how iMessenger works...

 

[TeknoBug]

No I don't think SMS feature works on non-SIM devices. It would pretty much be the same as Apple's iMessenger.

 

[Powerplaygraphix]

Actually, I could see it syncing to your Gmail through Google Voice. You can set Voice up to go to wherever you want and use it from whatever device you want. What would probably happen is that you can link it to your phone number and anything sent to that number will then be routed through hangouts to your hangouts account. My niece has Voice on her iPad and texts everywhere. She doesn't have a real phone at all.