Hangouts on iOS gets more exclusive features: video messaging and animated stickers
It was all the way back in October of last year that Google gave iOS users a nice little update to the Hangouts app. As pointed out in a previous post, Hangouts on iOS gave its users the ability to make phone calls (using their Google Voice numbers) over WiFi — whether their devices had a SIM card/cellular service or not. It was a pretty nice update, one that set many an Android fanboy raging over the seemingly preferential treatment given to iOS users. Well, I hate to get your panties in a bunch, but it looks like it’s happening again…
Last week, Google finally updated the iOS app and once again — it’s a doozy. This time around, Hangouts finally adheres to iOS 7 guidelines and adds new features that not only catch it up to its Android counterpart, but surpass it in some ways. iOS users can, not only send cute animated stickers in Hangouts, but short, 10 second video clips as well.
Okay, so animated stickers isn’t too big a deal, but video messaging? Holy crap. This would virtually eliminate the need for other services like Snapchat. Where voice calling likely has numerous technical hurdles keeping the Hangouts team from bringing it to Android devices, we’re hoping video messaging (and animated stickers) will soon be making its way to the Android version.
Nothing has been confirmed by Google, but expect at the very least animated animated stickers soon making their way to Hangouts for Android in a future update. We’ll keep an eye out.