Rumors of Google Hangouts Shutting Down in 2020 Surface Online
Published on December 1, 2018
- Google is considering shutting down its Hangouts app according to recent reports.
- The tech giant may phase out the app in favor of RCS ‘Chat’ and Android Messages.
- Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet will not be removed and will continue to be a part of G Suite.
Google may phase out its Hangouts app sometime in 2020 after 7 years of service since its release in 2013. The app was initially released as a replacement for Google Talk, and it brought in a number of new features in the modern smartphone era. Recent reports citing a source who is familiar with the internal roadmap of the tech giant revealed that the messaging app is going to be shut down.
Hangouts Meet and Hangouts Chat were introduced last year as part of G Suite, and many had expected the consumer version of the app to be removed. However, Google’s latest RCS Chat and Android Messages app will continue offering messaging features. The SMS feature from Hangouts was removed earlier this year on May 22, but the chat feature was left functional.
Going by recent reviews of the Hangouts app, it seems like Google has not released bug fixes and performance improvements in quite some time which adds credibility to the news about the app being shut down. The G Suite versions of the app are similar to Slack, a popular communication app for workplaces. Google Voice Calling was one of the highlight features of Hangouts, and it was moved to its own dedicated app earlier this year as well.
With the advanced messaging standard set to become a part of carriers like T-Mobile and other major carriers, the need for a dedicated messaging app like Hangouts may be long gone. Hangouts saw no significant growth over the years, and the number of active users continued to decline. The app stopped gaining traction with WhatsApp, Telegram and other popular messaging services gaining massive popularity and they offer many more features compared to Google’s app.
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