Google on Tuesday added new features to its Hangouts app for the iPhone and iPad, namely deeper integration with its Voice telephony service, a pretty smart way to share your location with others, the ability to tell your friends what you’re up to via status messages and more.
Today’s refresh follows last month’s Android app update which introduced a similar set of enhancements. These newly introduced features are available on iOS right now so go ahead and download Hangouts free in the App Store and take the app for a spin.
In addition to manual location sharing, the app analyzes your chats to determine whether a contact has asked about your whereabouts. If so, the app will intelligently suggest locations to share optionally with a friend with a single tap.
Pretty sweet!
Sometimes you want to tell everyone on your list about that thing that has been on your mind lately or just share your feelings, thought of the day and some such. Now you can, thanks to the newly added support for states messages in Hangouts.
And, if you add your phone number to Hangouts, your friends will be able to find and follow you more easily on the service. The search monster has also added the ability to check out your voicemail and text messages from your Google Voice account directly in Hangouts.
Finally, you’ll notice improvements to the video call experience and there are now even more stickers available to express your mood with fun pictures.
Google Hangouts 2.5 changelog:
- New sticker packs.
- When friends ask where you are, share your location in one click with smart sharing suggestions.
- Leave status messages so people know what you’re up to or how you’re feeling.
- Find your friends and family on Hangouts more easily by phone number.
- See SMS and Voicemails from your Google Voice account.
- Improved video call experience and misc bug fixes.
The 29.6-megabyte download requires an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad with iOS 7.0 or later.