Google Hangouts it’s still alive and it’s 2021, if you can believe that. Google hasn’t finished with the best messaging app it has ever made, an app that was one or two feature tweaks to become the king. However, their useful life will end soon, possibly in late 2021. Before we get there, they need to allow Hangouts users to start testing their replacement, the app known as Google Chat.
According to lines of code buried in a recent Google Chat update, Google is preparing to launch some kind of beta experience for Hangouts users. Once live – and it could be very soon if these lines of code are already in the app – a pop-up will welcome Hangouts users in Google Chat, informing them that Chat offers a “new experience and features not found in Hangouts ”and that there may be“ bugs and other issues ”.
If you don’t have Chat installed, you may also be welcome to try it out through Gmail. If that sounds weird, well, you must have lost all of our coverage of Google Chat and Meet when integrating with Gmail. We already have Meet tabs available, but there are also plans to add Google Chat to Gmail. It looks like Google could welcome the Chat integration there, also inviting Hangouts users.
If you’re confused about why you can’t use Google Chat yet, it’s because it took Google years to slowly implement it for just a select group of users. The Google Workspace staff (formerly G Suite), who is currently the only user with full access, has only recently been able to send messages to Chat / Hangouts users outside an organization. This is obviously an important feature if Chat is to replace Hangouts.
To recap, Hangouts is not yet available and Google still plans to replace it with Chat. To do this, Google appears to be preparing to allow some Hangouts users to test Chat through a beta program that is likely to open the floodgates for everyone to decide whether Chat is good or whether it’s really time to move on.
// 9to5Google