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Google finally kills a 16-year-old product that you probably thought was dead already
The Google Talk instant messaging service will close on June 16
You may have thought Google Talk — the company’s original instant messaging service from 2005 — was dead, but the chat app has continued in some form for the last few years and will be officially retired later this week. Google Talk has been inaccessible through most avenues for the last few years, but you’ve still been able to use the instant messaging service through third-party app support on services such as Pidgin and Gajim. Now, that support is being retired, as announced on Google’s support blog, and it’s happening as soon as June 16.
Before there was Allo and Duo, before Hangouts was unveiled, there was Google Talk. In some ways, it was better than the Hangouts platform that replaced it. Talk had a real desktop app, and if you didn't like it, you could use any XMPP client to communicate. You could even send messages to users on other XMPP-powered services - a huge difference from today's proprietary messaging services.
For Google Talk users, Product Manager Mayur Kamat has some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that the chat service's desktop client for Windows will be deprecated on February 23, 2015 as the team continues to focus on making Hangouts better.
Users of Google Voice have long called for the company to pay more attention to the seemingly forgotten service for quite some time. Unfortunately, they may be getting more than they were hoping for. While many people are thrilled to hear Voice will finally support MMS and become a part of Hangouts in early 2014, Google is also planning to close up shop for all 3rd-party apps that relied on the service for free texting and VoIP calling. Sadly, these apps will cease to function on May 15, 2014.
Earlier this week at a Google+ event, the company announced several important additions to Hangouts for Android. The updated version 2.0 comes with SMS support as well as location sharing, the ability to display animated GIF files, as well as the previously discovered in a teardown statuses and moods. AndroidPolice covered the rumor on October 7th following my initial Google+ report on October 4th.
Here's How To Enable The New Hangouts In Gmail, But Only If You're Ready To Lose Phone Dialing
Google may've said during Wednesday's keynote that it planned to roll out Hangouts to Gmail users gradually, but if you just can't wait to integrate the
Google may've said during Wednesday's keynote that it planned to roll out Hangouts to Gmail users gradually, but if you just can't wait to integrate the new messaging service into your e-mail dashboard, there's a way to gain early access. Simply log into Gmail, ensure you've signed into Google Talk (if you're having trouble enabling Talk, try installing the browser plugin), click on the thumbnail associated with your account in the Talk sidebar, and select the "Try the new Hangouts" option.
Hanging Out With Google Hangouts - Google's New, Beautiful Messaging App That Doesn't Really Unify Anything
The new Google Messenger is real! It's not called Babel, or Google Talk, but "Hangouts." It also isn't the unified messenger we've all wanted - maybe it
The new Google Messenger is real! It's not called Babel, or Google Talk, but "Hangouts." It also isn't the unified messenger we've all wanted - maybe it will be someday, but Hangouts is strictly a Google Talk replacement - there's no SMS or Google Voice integration.
Google I/O 2013: Google's To-Do List This Year
Google I/O is coming! We'll know about all of Google's new projects in just 2 short agonizingly long weeks. While we desperately count the days until May
Google I/O is coming! We'll know about all of Google's new projects in just 2 short agonizingly long weeks. While we desperately count the days until May 15th, we thought it would be a great idea to take stock all of the things we've caught wind of lately.
A few months ago I wrote "Stock Android Isn't Perfect," an article where I turned my usual harsh UX critique on stock Android, instead of just picking on TouchWiz and Sense all the time in my reviews. The article went over pretty well, and even got a few responses from Googlers! I didn't cover everything that was wrong with Android, though, and there have been a bunch of updates since the original article, so it's about time I wrote a sequel.
Happy New Year! It's that time again; with the new year comes our new annual prediction post. I tackled this last year, and rather than do a bunch of crazy, pulled-from-thin-air predictions, I ended up with a link-filled research-fest for the year. It worked out pretty well, so that's what's on the docket for today. First though, I'll take a look and see just how many of last year's predictions and rumors came true, and provide some updates for the more important topics.
Google Talk is one of my favorite parts about Android. If you have other Googly friends, between Android, Gmail, and G+, they are almost always available. In Android 2.3.4, Google Talk got a big upgrade in the form of voice and video chat.
A minor OTA update is currently rolling out to the Motorola Photon 4G that brings a few bug fixes and one notable feature: Google Talk with Video support. Other than that, it's a pretty bland update:
When the new Google Talk with voice and video calling was launched, those of you on T-Mobile who wanted to place calls on 3G quickly found out that it wasn't at all possible. Rather than connecting you to your dog for an afternoon chat, the application stubbornly insisted on only operating through a Wi-Fi connection. At Google I/O 2011, I was able to dig up some more technical details surrounding this limitation, even further upsetting hopeful customers. Bummer.
Last week, TechCrunch posted a little announcement that got all 9 people who still used AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) very excited, as all their buddies had already left the dying empire and migrated to Google Talk, and AIM was starting to get kind of boring without them. AOL to the rescue - the company (or whatever is left of it) quietly announced that starting sometime this week, AIM and Google Talk users would be able to become BFFs again, all without switching away from their respective clients.
While roaming around Google I/O and looking for answers to numerous questions you guys posed, I ran into Wei Huang, the tech lead on Google Talk for Android. Yup, the same guy who announced video chat two weeks ago on the Google Mobile blog. Here are some questions I had for Wei, echoing many of you guys:
One of Android 2.3.4's main new features, which was officially released to the Nexus S late last week, was video and audio calling in Google Talk. While having this feature on the Nexus S is great for its owners, Android users of other devices were left behind. If there is one thing Android users don't like to do, it's wait, which is why britoso from xda managed to rip out the app from his Nexus S and modify it to be compatible with most devices running Android 2.3.
On Monday we told you that Google may bring video chat to Android 2.3.4, and that we expect an announcement at Google I/O. It looks like we got it half right - Google has officially announced Talk with Video Chat integration in Android 2.3.4, but we didn't have to wait until I/O to find out.
After a bunch of relatively uninteresting premium apps given out for free in Amazon's Android Appstore, today's offering is really quite refreshing. Users of the desktop version of Trillian will instantly recognize their beloved multi-network IM client's logo, and those new to it will find its features quite impressive:
Today has definitely been one of the more exciting days this year, at least in the Android department. Last week, Google sent out invitation for a Honeycomb-related event, where we, of course, were expecting detailed walkthroughs of Android 3.0 and hands-on with the Motorola XOOM.