Google announced a major upgrade to its Hangouts real-time communication service, rolling out a new stand-alone Hangouts app for the web, Android and iOS that will be available later Wednesday.
The app was introduced by Vic Gundotra, senior VP of engineering, at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco on Wednesday. He emphasized Google's intention of "getting gadgets out of the way," and giving people the ability to contact their friends, colleagues and loved ones on any platform, regardless of operating system.
"Why should OSes matter?," asked Gundotra. "People matter." He emphasized that the new Hangouts app will focus on conversations, rather than contacts. He added that contacts are still available with a single tap, and they'll be ranked by Google according to how often you talk to or chat with those contacts.
The conversations can include combinations of text, photos and video. All can be stored, so you can go back in time and relive any of these conversations. If you'd rather not have them saved for posterity, history can be turned off, and conversations easily deleted.
If you add photos to a conversation, the app can automatically save them into albums.
As people join the conversation, their profile icons appear at the bottom of the screen, animating into view. The app also allows you to see how far in the conversation someone has read. "It really feels like you're in the same room together. We think that's delightful," Gundotra said.
He added that the app will synchronize all of your conversations, no matter on which operating system they originated. There's also the ability for a text conversation to be turned into a group video chat with a single tap of a video icon.