Hangouts for iOS | Hacker News Reader

Hangouts for iOS

itunes.apple.com

141 pointszacharytamas94 comments

Not a great first experience on the iPad for me.

1. Launch app in landscape. Oh, I guess they don't support landscape orientation for signing it. That's annoying.

2. Change orientation to portrait and sign in.

3. A dialog requesting to send push notifications appears — in landscape orientation (http://cl.ly/image/2t2P0X3f2H2Z) — but I'm still holding it in portrait and the rest of the UI is in portrait as well.

4. I have to step through a bunch of screens that I just went through when I signed in on my iPhone. These are not related to local settings, but to my Google account. Why do I have to go through these again?

That screenshot you show would surely be an iOS issue, not an app-specific one?

I think their app isn't handling orientation changes properly. I signed out and tried it again and I can consistently reproduce the bug.

If I am signed out, the app will never launch in landscape orientation. If I am already in landscape orientation, I can sign out and see the login screen in landscape as I should. However as soon as I rotate to portrait, I can no longer get back to landscape.

As an iOS developer, this definitely seems like a problem with the app itself and I've not experienced this elsewhere.

It's an app-specific problem. This is most likely due to an improperly implemented handler for orientation change events - if the currently displayed View Controller does not respond to the correct config callbacks the OS can get into a state where it presumes an orientation mode is supported, but the UI itself is rendering in that orientation - and thus all OS-level UI will render rotated.

Now that Google is pushing Google+ even harder in everything new they launch.. I just wish Google would somehow make it possible to merge two Google Apps accounts into one public Google+ account. Now I have to manage multiple Google+ which makes me feel a little schizophrenic and it's confusing to other people who aren't sure on which account to connect with me. It's getting messy.

I successfully merged my Google Apps Google+ account with my regular Google+ account. Have you tried this?

https://support.google.com/plus/answer/1716102?hl=en&top...

To be fair to Google, Apple did break rotation in lots of apps in iOS 6. Though the fix isn't that difficult and I'm surprised that new releases are running into this.

The Hangouts app is iOS 6.1 only.

I deleted it after I found out it requires you to have a Google+ account. I guess I shouldn't have had my hopes up considering it's called Hangouts.

Yeah, they can't seriously expect to compete with FaceTime and Skype adoption rates if they continue trying to force users to engage with their terrible social feature crap just because they want to make video calls.

Then again, Google's playing a very long game here with Plus (and Android, and self-driving cars, and a zillion other things). Who knows if it'll work out in the end. What I do know today is that it's rather annoying.

I'd just like to be able to vidchat with friends from my chromebook without having to get all my friends to fuck up their youtube accounts.

Can you make Skype calls without a Skype account?

FaceTime requires an Apple ID and Skype requires a Skype account, so I'm confused, how is requiring a G+ account any different?

Google+ wants to integrate everything and that can cause problems if you use their services for important things. I'm still refusing to link my primary gmail address with a Google+ account after the big issue with name verification. My name is very unamerican so until I move everything important off of gmail, I won't join g+.

I know they promised not to do that anymore, but they hold too much data right now to trust them without any access to support.

You seem to have the workaround already, though: make a separate account. I'm not going to argue that it's a good thing that you need to do that, but it doesn't seem worse than having to e.g. sign up for a separate Skype account to use Skype.

Agree w/ mikeash

I already had a google ID. Signing up to Hangout asked for Google+ registration, forces to set the public name of the base account and forces activation of Picasa. I actually bailed out of each of these steps once, just to check that it won't sign up without all of these.

Comparing it to skype, I actually have two skype accounts, one "public" for friends and work related things, and set on my workstation, and an obscure private one that only a few family members see, set on y phone. Having the same set up for Hangout would feel like a nightmare with all the related services entangled, switching signups even to look at pictures etc.

In that both of those are fire and forget, whereas your Google/G+ account is used for tons of stuff people don't really like but are shoved into their throats.

I do a lot of video calls with startup founders and other startup investors in and out of the Valley. YMMV but my breakdown is probably 95% Hangout, 3% Skype and 2% Facetime/GoToMeeting/Other.

Like most new Google things, it doesn't seem to be enabled for my Google Apps account. There's no clear indication of how to do this (if it's possible at this point).

Say what you want about Apple, but onboarding for iMessages and Facetime did not require navigating a byzantine admin panel. I understand that Google Apps is a different beast, but there's something to be said for a chat service _just working_ in the way that iMessages does: you put in someone's phone number (or email) and if they are registered it works.

I recently tried to use my non-Google Jabber account with a friend who's on Gmail. Apparently Google no longer allows invites from non-Google Jabber accounts in the chat built into Gmail. Getting chat to work with a new contact even just between Gmail accounts would sometimes require some pretty opaque incantations -- and with external Jabber accounts it's even worse! There's no indication that your invite didn't go through to them, and I was never able to get his invite to come through to me.

tl;dr Based on my prior experience with Google and their IM products, I'm not convinced this could be an iMessage/Kik/WhatsApp replacement. Will my mom be able to use it?

I just tried it, it works for my Google Apps account. Maybe it's a rollout process?

Though the web version seems to have problems with multiple accounts signed in at once.

Looks like you're right. I found this by searching Google+ (of all places):

> in case you're wondering how to enable Hangouts for your Google Apps account, found this: "Admins can enable the new Hangouts experience in the Talk settings of the Admin console. We are still rolling this out so look for it soon."

A useful tip about Google features and Google apps. FREE Google Apps users get them on by default. PAID Google Apps users get them OFF by default. I needed to turn on Talk and Hangouts today.

http://www.googlegooru.com/how-to-enable-the-new-hangouts-fu...

You are comparing a company launching on its own platform to a company launching on someone else's closed platform.

I understand this; that's what I meant by "I understand that Google Apps is a different beast".

Regardless, to the average end user this distinction doesn't matter. I think users will gravitate to what works well and what their friends use.

I really hope this is Google Hangouts instead of Facebook Messages (ugggh).

iMessages has problems of its own (TERRIBLE sync between devices), but it has the huge advantage of working for everyone with an iDevice.

What I really want:

1) a service that works seamlessly between any device (like iMessages is supposed to for iOS and OS X)

2) this service should be platform-agnostic, working on any computer or mobile device

3) it should be federated like Jabber so we don't have to depend on one company

4) comparable features with the existing services: read receipts, group chat, push notifications

I hope Google Hangouts is exactly this, and that they let me enable it for my Google Apps account.

Other than number 3, this seems to match hangouts, assuming it works as they say (in a way iMessage doesn't seem to for you). The killer missing feature for me is SMS though, a vast majority of people cannot use Hangouts for the vast majority of their conversations because of the Google+ requirement.

You're saying you'd like SMS integration? So if you add your friend with a dumb phone to your Hangout, they can participate via SMS?

That would be awesome. I have a few friends with dumb phones that are constantly left out of iMessage conversations. I feel bad about it, but not bad enough to inconvenience myself (or pay for an SMS plan; yes I'm a terrible person).

Edit: The federation thing is probably a pipe dream. No one has an incentive for supporting a federated protocol -- at this point it's either existing platforms going for lock-in (the iOS lock-in caused by iMessages is huge; it's the biggest reason I don't consider Android). I guess what I really want is iMessages that works on Android and over SMS, and doesn't suck at syncing between devices.

Sure, that's one use of it. But also friends with smartphones but not Google+, those I communicate with by SMS or WhatsApp primarily at the moment, the majority of my contacts. It's not even that I want rid of my SMS plan, although I can definitely see the benefit of that too.

We basically want the same thing - iMessages that works on Android, iOS and desktop, including SMS. Google are brilliant at sync and I have no doubts that'll work great (especially now with synced notifications). If they added SMS and starting a conversation by phone number (selecting from contacts obviously), it'd be the perfect messaging app in my opinion.

EDIT: Hangouts on web only work with Chrome, so that rules out a lot of devices I thought were supported. Not a big deal for me, but I guess it could break your requirements depending.

Hangouts on web should work on other browsers too, obviously some better than others, but work nonetheless.

https://groupme.com/ may be able to help with your scenario.

One of my biggest hopes in life is that someone with good project management experience puts something up on kickstarter to build really really good clients for a federated videochat/messaging system (could even be based on xmpp) for every single major platform (osx, windows, android, iOS, WM, html5/browser) so that we can finally ditch all these terrible walled gardens (SMS, Skype, FaceTime, iMessage, BBM, Google Talk, AIM, WhatsApp, Facebook Chat, Twitter DMs, ad nauseam) once and for all.

If you do it before I find the time, please don't forget the end-to-end encryption and synchronization of read items across devices.

It's frustrating because so many are so close. iMessage/FaceTime would be the end-all if it were federated and supported on multiple platforms, because they came the closest to getting it right (but stopped just short of doing the thing that's best for customers versus the thing that's best for Apple).

This is what I was hoping Hangouts would be, almost. There's a couple things there I wouldn't expect Google to do, and that I wouldn't miss too much. But you're right, Apple is close and I just wanted Google to do exactly what they've done, without the complaints people have with syncing (which is something Google are awesome at anyway) and across devices. They came so close, but lack of SMS means it's not really uniting anything. It's just another option for a way to communicate with some, but not all people. So close, but so far.

They're not done yet.

According to my G+ stream, Amit Singhal has announced that Hangouts is also going to be the future of Google Voice. And apparently you can already choose to get SMS messages from Hangouts when you are idle. A less important piece of SMS integration, to be sure, but that certainly looks like a starting point.

No, he doesn't do that anywhere in his message.

He is complaining about what Google does even WITHIN it's own platform (and the web).

Regardless of what Google does within its own platform, he still compared what Google did on iOS to what Apple did on iOS.

FWIW, I have Android and when I downloaded and launched Hangouts it automatically logged me in. I assume iMessage was similar - but a third-party app wouldn't be for obvious reasons.

>Regardless of what Google does within its own platform, he still compared what Google did on iOS to what Apple did on iOS.

And nothing, even on this part of his complaint, was about things that Google couldn't fix because Apple didn't let them.

So the "closed/someone-else's platform" remark was redundant.

I'm getting "Hangouts has not been enabled for your account". I'm guessing this is because my work account has Google+ disabled. So are you going to have to be on Google+ to use their messaging product now? Will they shut off Google Talk for regular gmail users?

Tried it with a few more accounts - if you try to use it with a regular gmail account it says "Authentication error: Google+ is required".

It's a little off that Larry Page was complaining about Microsoft not using open standards but then they go and introduce a totally new closed system within their closed social network.

Hangouts on Android does not need a Google+ account as far as I know. Not sure about iOS. On Gmail, you can definitely use it without a G+ account, but photo sharing and group video calls will not work. Also, Google Talk will not be shut down, you have to opt in to the Hangouts experience in Gmail.

Can we talk about the icon. I am not a designer but quotes inside of a word balloon? Don't word balloons and quotes have the same purpose?

Agreed. The icon is as generic as it gets, and feels really cheap. I'm surprised they didn't stick with their other app icon branding, which is a solid color with a white icon.

It's a conversation within a conversation. /s

Conception...

Kinda a non sequitur, but is this the flat design that everyone wants? Im not impressed.

Have to agree. It is surprisingly ugly.

What happened to the consistent design we have seen with Google Now, Gmail etc ?

What's the difference between this and Hangouts in the Plus app?

This is something that I hope Google work on and clear up- on Android it's the same, in that I have both the Messenger app, Google+ app (that links to Messenger) and the new Hangouts app. There clearly only needs to be one.

I also haven't got the new Hangout-style chat in Gmail- only on G+. I hope they are intending on porting over.

GTalk (or GChat) integration/unification.

I don't understand why they only have video and no voice only. I use voice a lot, almost never video.

I agree. Voice was very handy, especially from the desktop versions...

For those unable to find it in the iOS App Store: Search for a Google app (i.e. Google+) and click "Related". You'll find Hangouts in the See All list.

Ran into this and solved by searching for just "hangouts".

I could not seem to find it through both methods. I ended up going to the Top Charts and found it as #9 in the Free section.

So there's no presence/status notifications? I'll miss that when this hits GMail.

Agreed, that's easily 50% or more of what I used google talk for. It was a way of knowing when people were back at their desk and could be reached to discuss something. This new solution is more like SMS messaging, where you send off a message and just hope they are there and respond right away if it's urgent.

You can vaguely tell that someone is online by their icon being a bit brigher but it's a terrible solution.

This just tells me that they want the Hangouts app to be straight up texting app as opposted to an instant messaging app (like Gtalk). No obvious feature of seeing people online and no concept of a "buddy list."

Online users are shown with a green bar under their photo.

Inside the conversation, if someone is faded out then they are not there, but an unfaded image shows when they are currently in the conversation.

Online isn't the same as "available". A green dot in GChat means actively saying "you can interrupt me". A red dot means "this better be important". Currently about 2/3 of my GChat list is "away".

There's a whole world of etiquette here that they're throwing away.

I think they are trying to move more towards the long-lived conversations, where it shows you if the person is there and willing to be interrupted (the green bar), or they simply are not necessarily there to answer right now (because they are away from their computer, or they are in do-not-disturb mode). I realize that this is missing the middle "busy" state, but I don't really think that's a big loss. It used to be that when you sent offline messages it would end up as an email to them. Now when you send messages and they aren't in the online mode you can just assume that they'll see the message at the time of their choosing and respond then.

Not supported on iPhone 3GS: no front-facing camera. I didn't expect that given "ALL your friends can use Hangouts" and "and no one gets left out".

Is there a relation to Google Talk for those outside of Android/Gmail web? I was under the impression that every XMPP app on iOS just stopped working properly a year or so ago. (In fact, this was a primary reason my sister went from iPhone 4 -> GSIII last year, since she uses Talk extensively with her friends.)

If that was the case, not anymore. On iOS, I'm using BeeJive for Google Talk and it works fine. Mo+ has an app as well.

I still use Trillian on iOS for Google Talk and it works fine.

I'm trying to find out info on how long that will be true.

Having trouble finding a crediable source, but various news outlets are saying Nikhyl Singhal says xmpp is going away. That will screw over Trillian as well as several other clients.

Edit: Removing info that isn't accurate.

Seems like this was cobbled together for Google I/O. The experience is lacking.

I'm not really sure this works. My colleague apparently messaged me last night, I didn't get any notifications. So this morning I started a new Hangout (text-only) and he got nothing either.

Aha! Finally had an email, over 10 hours after he first sent the message. It took an hour after I created a new Hangout with him for the message to even get to him.

I know this is a nit-picky thing but why does this app require 6.1 or later? Thats a funny move. 6.0 I can understand.

What functionality could they have in 6.1 that made them have to require it?

They might have just targeted the 6.1 sdk and decided not to deal with the 6.0 issues. For new things it is actually a good idea as 6.1 is quite a bit better than 6.0 in things like core data.

The only changes made were in MapKit and UIKit.

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#releasenotes/Genera...

Doesn't mean there weren't any.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15550861/nssortdescriptor...

I find random differences far too often.

Why would you be stuck at iOS 6.0 when 6.1 is a quick over-the-air upgrade for all iOS 6.0-compatible devices?

Google's answer to Facebook Messenger… I'm surprised, I would've expected that they start out in this category by buying WhatsApp.

If I use Adium on my Desktop and Hangouts on my phone will I see the group chats / google hangouts?

So far it's syncing the messages sent and received via Adium. They show up in google+, although they're not automatically marked as read (though I've not yet received the google+ update). Images and hangout invites are not synced. I have yet to attempt a group chat.

UPDATE: Photos will show in the messenger, or send you a link to a google+ page if you're on gchat.

You're right for single messages, but I'm not seeing group messages in Adium.

"I have yet to attempt a group chat."

I'm not, at the moment. Let me know if I'm missing something.

hangouts was cool at 1st. Now it's kinda cool in that you can hang out w/ your favorite computer science academics but that is about it...

nifty, it pushes notifications to pebble watch.

It's not even available on the Play store yet, that or it isn't available for my modern top of the line device :(

EDIT: It's live now, it's a direct replacement for the talk app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...

Is it just me, or is it not compatible with the nexus 7? Kind of a strange choice.

Not just you. Anyone know why?

It's showing up for me: http://i.imgur.com/8ngB1gK.png

The app page itself isn't loading right now, but that just looks like a temporary issue.

If you are logged into Play on the webapp and click install, it will get automagically installed to your phone. Worked for me!

I assumed that they were rolling out an update to Google+ that will have hangouts as a component of it. They talked about it under the context of Google+ with the statement "adds another icon". They do rolling updates for things like that so I would expect to it sometime this evening.

If you check the URL for Google Hangouts you'll notice it's pointing to the old identifier for Google Talk (com.google.android.talk):

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...

You'll notice this same link is used in multiple locations promoting Google Hangouts:

http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/hangouts/

It looks like they temporarily pulled the Google Talk app to transition everyone to Google Hangouts without needing users' intervention (except maybe upgrading the app).

Edit: Just installed Hangouts app, it replaces Talk. Also it asked to confirm my phone number, hinting at future SMS support?

The app requires permissions to send, receive, and read SMS and MMS messages. support is definitely coming.

No, it's a standalone app that's being delivered as an update to google talk.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...

Hangouts is a separate app for both iOS and Android, not part of Google+

I don't think so. It gives this error "We're sorry, the requested URL was not found on this server." when you go here: http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/hangouts/

Plus, they'd include it in the iOS Google+ app, too, if they did that for Android.

EDIT: It's working on Android now.

Plus, they'd include it in the iOS Google+ app, too, if they did that for Android.

Not necessarily. A single Android app can have multiple launcher icons with multiple activity entry points. Not sure if that is true for iOS apps, or whether Apple would approve such a design.

Good catch on the URL, however the package name in the URL (com.google.android.talk) is actually for Google Talk, which is actually a part of....heck I don't even know -- it's just on newer devices as the base services.

You're correct. An iOS app has only a single icon and a single entry point. It makes total sense for Google to release this as a separate app.

Not to mention iOS has been through the "kitchen sink" app design phase before, and it's too soon to revisit it. "Kitchen sink" apps tend to have overly deep, cumbersome UIs.

Awesome! I wonder if those of us stuck in TouchWiz 4.1.x hell will see the updates, or if they're 4.2+ like other improvements I've been waiting on.

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