The new Hangouts platform offers considerable improvements to the previous Google chat and perhaps one of the features that was left to have was know the online status of our friends or acquaintances. Something very important so as not to go blind every time we see the contact list as it has happened until this new version.
So Google has announced a new update for the app of Android phones that especially solves this problem.
With a green icon showing the availability of the contact and another gray indicating the opposite, Hangouts users can quickly see their contacts. Apart from that Google has also improved in this new version the ease of moving between the different contacts when starting a hangout and thus it is easier to invite them to a group conversation.
The move from Google Talk to Hangouts has not been as easy as it might seem to Google at first, since from the beginning they have had their problems and the application has needed several updates to make it more stable and fast.
Although the path that Google has left with Hangouts with so much competition With WhatsApp, Line, ChatOn and the long-awaited and longed-for BBM from BlackBerry, they are expected to try even harder and improve the service, in any case it will be quite difficult for them to gain a foothold.
The update is currently being rolled out by Google and should be available to all users in the coming days. Hangouts will be updated on the desktop and iOS versions with the same features very shortly.
Google's online messaging service still has work to do after it has replaced Google chat and to which many were already accustomed.
More information - Google+ Hangouts is updated with HD video for now in the desktop version
Source - The Verge
I keep dodging the update. When I tried it, it was torture at how slow it was and how much RAM it was consuming. Anyone know if it's still the same crap?