Last spring, Google announced its pivot for the Hangouts brand to enterprise use cases with Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet, so the writing has been on the wall for quite some time regarding the Hangouts consumer app’s demise. Meanwhile, Google has transitioned its consumer-facing messaging efforts to RCS ‘Chat’ and Android Messages following Allo’s misadventures.
Given Google’s abandonment of the app in terms of development and its presumed eventual death, many have already transitioned away from using it. But Hangouts is still the prominent chat option in Gmail on the web and the app remains on the Google Play Store to this day. Many recent reviews say that the app is showing signs of age, noting bugs and performance issues.
As mentioned, Hangouts as a brand will live on with G Suite’s Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet, the former intended to be a team communication app comparable to Slack, and the latter a video meetings platform. Meanwhile, Google Voice calling, which was at first independent and then long integrated into Hangouts, was moved back out to its own redesigned app earlier this year.
Interestingly, despite its forthcoming axing, Hangouts was one of a few apps to get early support for Android Auto’s new MMS and RCS functionality, alongside Android Messages and WhatsApp.
Update 12/1: Google’s Scott Johnston has chimed in and denies that any decisions have been made about the timeline of legacy Hangouts’ shutdown. Confusingly, however, he says that users of consumer Hangouts users will be somehow “upgraded” to Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet, both of which have up to now been presented as enterprise-focused products that fill different needs.
Scott also explicitly confirms for the first time that Hangouts ‘classic’, the subject of this report, will be shutting down “eventually.”
Meanwhile, a second source has since corroborated my initial report, and says decisions have indeed been made for the deprecation of legacy Hangouts.
source: 9to5google.com
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