We've been eagerly awaiting the new version of Google Hangouts since it was announced at the Google+ event in October, and while a version pulled from the Nexus 5 is mostly working on most devices, its had its fair share of issues with crashing and video chat.

Now the update has finally landed on the Play Store, and with a slightly newer version number. Hangouts v2.0.122 (as opposed to 2.0.012 on the N5) is presumably beginning its slow and steady staged rollout, but you can get it right now. The problems with video chat and some crashing should be resolved in this new version, as the libvideochat_jni.so library is now included with the Hangouts APK. Previously, fixing the issues the missing library caused meant adding it in manually, which required root. You can download Hangouts v2.0.122, from one of the two mirrors below:

If you prefer to wait for it to roll out to your device over the Play Store, you can expect to see it in the coming days or weeks, depending on how smoothly the initial launch goes. The official changelog for Hangouts 2.0 is pasted below, but you can also check out our post on the announcement of the new version here.

  • SMS & MMS (Android 4.0+): Send/receive text messages with Hangouts! You can import your existing messages, quickly switch between SMS and Hangouts, and start group MMS conversations
  • Animated GIFs: send animated GIFs, cute kittens and all
  • Location: share a location in your conversations
  • Device, in-call, mood status: share what device you’re on, whether you’re on a call, or your current mood