Google reportedly removing SMS texting from Hangouts on May 22 | Hacker News Reader

Google reportedly removing SMS texting from Hangouts on May 22

arstechnica.com

11 pointsvidyesh11 comments

See, this is exactly why I was pissed when they suddenly removed the SMS app from Android and replaced it with Hangouts. I knew we were being forced into another Google product doomed to be weakened and discontinued within a year or two.

All the while I had to explain to my grandmother that yes, she had a new messaging app and no, she couldn't use the old one anymore. And yes, it's confusing it's called Hangouts now.

Now I can look forward to the same explanation the other way around again.

That's a bit of a self-fulfiling prophecy there. You didn't use it and got angry when they integrated SMS into the hangouts application, and so when lots of people reacted that way, they decided to take it out.

I'm not saying I disagree - I'd rather have a dedicated SMS app than an attempt to force me to use Google's messaging service more.

Of course, the dedicated SMS application on my Pixel doesn't seem to correctly normalise phone numbers - if they don't have country codes in my address book, the SMSes don't show names. In a fun bit of stupidity, the phone application does the exact opposite and only displays the contact if it doesn't have the country code. I assume my carrier is doing something weird when providing the numbers that they don't expect, because it seems incredible that such a big flaw in the core features of a phone is around.

There is a huge misunderstanding here in the comments. From my understanding, this change just means that hangouts can no longer be used as an app that sends and receives SMS from the carrier. They used to think it is a good idea to have everything in one app, but now they figured it's better to have two apps. It doesn't mean that they're disintegrating SMS sending (through Google) functionality from Hangouts.

There are two contradicting ideas in your reply.

>hangouts can no longer be used as an app that sends and receives SMS from the carrier.

and

>It doesn't mean that they're disintegrating SMS sending (through Google) functionality from Hangouts.

SMS is sending and receiving messages from the carrier.

Hangouts doesn't allow SMS = SMS functionality removed.

Nope, Hangouts also has the ability to send SMSs through Google, even from your computer. AIM and Yahoo Messenger also used to let you do this from your computer. It doesn't use your phone number. I think this is the distinction jimmies is trying to make.

So you are the stickler who does understand all that but won't agree to understand something if they don't use a certain term you want.

What everyone is talking about is 'text messaging' or 'texting'. Generally people refer 'text messaging' as 'SMS'. And that is what everyone is talking about.

I ported the number I've had for 10+ years to google voice. I have many services set up with 2 factor auth using that number.

What other options are there for an "online phone" like this? I only really need sms, and would like to use my own number. Do I have to port it to twilio and build my own? I'm happy to pay for a service like Google voice.

This doesn't affect Google Voice yet afaik.

Users reportedly removing Hangouts from phones on May 23!

Cool. A reason to ditch Project Fi

The article seems to suggest that Google Voice users can continue to use Hangouts for SMS, and since in my experience, Google doesn't treat Fi users all that differently from Google Voice users (e.g. you can't have both a Google Fi and Google Voice number on the same Google account), I'm hoping this means that you can continue to use Hangouts for SMS on Project Fi.

That's just my interpretation though.

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