Google has finally started fixing issues with its Hangouts by rolling out the first update for the instant messaging application for Android. In the update, the search engine giant has updated the status availability icons so users can distinguish between their online and offline friends.
As obvious, the green icons will show the online users and grey ones will indicate the offline users.
Google replaced its GTalk application on Android platform with Hangouts a couple of months ago and Android users were waiting for this update since that time.
The updated version is Hangouts 1.2, and it comes with some more changes like the contact list coming with different options such as ‘People you hangout with’, ‘Suggested people’ and ‘Other contacts’.
Another update is that now the Hangouts invites are placed just above the conversation so it is tough to miss an invite. Hangouts users were also very disappointed when they were not able to pinch zoom pictures earlier, but now the feature is in and the zoom in and zoom out is much easier now.
Though many users are jubilant after using the updated application, Google’s app developers are yet to deliver the best to the Hangout app as the application still needs a list of improvements.
Google is yet to lend SMS and MMS support to the Hangouts users and as other instant messaging applications are coming with those support options, Google will soon start losing its customer base at least from Android platform.
The users of Hangouts application on Android often miss video call requests because there is no ringer option in the application. The call requests go unattended as they sit in notifications. Google has not paid any attention towards that feature and no ringer is added in the latest version.
One more thing Google engineers can look into is the text formatting and emoticons. Android version of Hangouts doesn’t let its users break paragraphs and the emoticons are also very small in size which is not the case when the application is used in a PC.
