Back in May, when Google announced Google Hangouts at Google I/O. We were all pretty excited about it being an all-in-one messaging platform. Except it wasn’t quite that easy at launch. Since then they’ve added SMS integration and Google Voice Integration is due in “early 2014” according to the company. So now that we are all using Hangouts for all our Google messaging in different products, where’s our widget? Well it seems that Google doesn’t think we need one. But that doesn’t stop developers from creating one.
The widget is called the Hangouts Widget is now available on the Play Store, you can also just grab the APK from the XDA thread. It is free in the Play Store and there doesn’t appear to be any in-app purchases. Which I wouldn’t expect any since this is just simply a widget. I have to say the widget looks pretty nice. Even though I’d like to see it with a transparent background.
This widget is not compatible with every Android device. It appears to only be compatible with those devices that can run Hangouts. You’ll also need to have Google Hangouts installed on your device. Additionally, it will only show new Hangouts due to the limitations of the Android System. Which is understandable.
The app is currently sitting at version 1.0 so it’s brand new to the Play Store. But as expected it is still a work in progress. Looking at the posts on the thread over at XDA, it appears that the setup is usable, but it’s just not as feature-rich as many had hoped for. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be in the future. We’re going to have to keep an eye on this and see how it changes in the coming months. Hopefully Google doesn’t shut it down.
How many of you are going to check this one out? Let us know in the comments below.