Remember Google Talk? Well all those years ago when Android first launched it was the simply the instant messaging app. To be honest I don’t think take-up was that big, but over the years Google Talk was replaced with “Hangouts”, and we all got used to calling and sending pictures plus much more. As the app grew video messaging was incorporated, but this was stuck inside the Google ecosystem.
“Add SMS support” was the cry from the users, and finally Google listened. Hangouts, like WhatsApp (almost) is now, became the all-in-one messaging app. You could send messages, images, video chat, voice call and send SMS messages too.
Well, as is usual Google fashion, they’ve decided to ditch a perfectly good service. A pop-up now appears in the newest update – Hangouts 7.0. This dialog box suggests that you stop using Hangouts for SMS and switch to the Android standalone SMS client instead..
In the past pop up messages like this one means Google is preparing to remove or stop working on a feature.
Hangouts posted a similar message when it first integrated SMS, and again when it integrated its US-only Google Voice service into Hangouts, telling users to switch to Hangouts from whatever they were currently using.
Are you a Hangouts user? Let us know in the comments below…