Tag: Google Hangouts

A new update for G Suite paying customers is rolling out that brings a handful of improvements to the Google Vault feature.  With the update, you will be able to set a custom retention length of time for Hangouts Meet recording as well as be able to set a policy for user’s Drive trash folders.

For those who are not G Suite users or who are unfamiliar with it, Google Vault is your domain’s retention policy manager when you use the service from Google, allowing you to set how long things like emails and files are retained along with Hangouts Meet recordings and search results.

Google Hangouts has officially dropped support of SMS for non Project Fi or Google Voice users.  The support ended yesterday and was something that had been planned since Google announced the change back in March.

The change is part of the overall strategy of Google to move their G Suite customers to the new Google Hangouts Meet and Hangouts Chat while leveraging Android Messages for SMS on Android devices.  For consumers, the focus is on Google Allo and Duo to meet these communications needs.

Google Hangouts as we know it today is radically changing.  Not only is the app getting a major UI makeover, it is being split into two separate apps as Google repositions the app for the Enterprise.  I’m attending Google Cloud Next this week and the announcements around Google Hangouts are pretty exciting.  First, the app is being split into two distinct apps:  Hangouts Meet which is designed to be a collaboration and conferencing solution, and Hangouts Chat which is designed to be a Google Drive integrated chat and collaboration tool.  Together, along G Suite, provide a seamless way for people both in a company and outside of it to meet, collaborate and share information while removing the challenge of getting people involved with a simple one-tap ability to join a call.

The changes are aimed at cutting down the friction that enterprises have when it comes to setting up meetings and collaboration where content can be easily and freely shared.  These, tied to the new Jamboard whiteboard solution will allow the free flowing of content and information amongst team members.

Google Hangouts has an update rolling out for Android that is probably best described as a house cleaning release.  The update takes the messaging app to version 16 and cleans up contact lists and improves search within the app.  Contact lists in this update are more streamlined with the Contacts option in the menu now gone.  It has been removed from this part of the app as it was redundant to the Floating Action Button in your chat lists.  You can use that FAB to add a chat with any contact(s) so they are effectively listed there for you.

Search within Hangouts has also been improved around contacts.  Now when you tap the FAB to start a new conversation, when you start to type in the name of a contact, you will see four different lists:  Frequent, On Hangouts, Your Groups and Not on Hangouts.  The idea here is to quickly identify what communication paths are open for a contact so you can chose the best one for them.  For those who are not on Hangouts, you will see an “Invite” link by their name.