Google Hangouts 4.0 Revamp Rollout Begins With Material Design and More

Besides the major organisational change and naming a new CEO, Google has also been working behind the scenes for its Hangouts app, as we can see in the app's new overhauled version. The search giant has after innumerable leaks finally introduced Hangouts 4.0 for Android, making the messaging app sleeker and simpler to use.

According to Google, the new Hangouts 4.0 has now been updated with the company's own Material Design philosophy, first introduced with Android 5.0 Lollipop. "Hangouts has a new look and feel: items respond to your touch in more intuitive ways and transitions between tasks are more fluid," said the company blog post on Monday.

The app also features a new floating 'Compose' button at bottom right corner of the screen, from where users can start new group or single conversations, similar to the floating button in Gmail. The contacts page has also been 'streamlined' and is meant to allow users to find contacts faster. In addition, the style of adding attachments has been completely changed. Hangout 4.0 users would see previewed images and notes at the bottom of the same screen on tapping at the 'image' or 'note' attachment button. Sharing emojis, gif images, and user location has also been made easier. Google also claims the new version would consume less battery than before.

"Whether you're sending a quick message or video chatting with family, you don't want hold-ups. We've been obsessively fixing bugs and speeding up message delivery to make Hangouts faster and more reliable," adds the post. Apart from bug fixes, other new features include outbound caller ID, the ability to receive and reply to group MMS messages using Google Voice, and custom status message support.

Furthermore, Hangouts for Android Wear has been also updated. The updated smartwatch functionality would now let users set custom statuses and send a message using 'Ok Google, Send a Hangouts Message' voice command.

While the new app has already started rolling out for Android users, the version was already available for iOS devices since one month. The update, for now, has not yet reached India. Impatient users can however sideload the Google-signed apk file (via Android Police).