Google Hangouts Now Has Voice Calling
Google has brought back voice calling to its messaging service Hangouts. Gmail and Google+ get the addition as well. In a blogpost, Google announced the addition of voice calling capability after public demand.
Hangouts was launched as a unified messaging app by Google at the Google I/O conference in May this year. It is available for Android, iOS, and for Chrome as an extension. The app maintains your conversations across your devices, allowing you to access and continue them from any device. It’s been downloaded over 50 million times from Google Play so far.
Hangouts replaces Google Talk on Android, and its voice-calling feature was sorely missed by users worldwide. So far, Hangouts has only offered text and video-calling features. After users complained, Google has now brought back voice-calling. In a post on the Official Gmail Blog, Senior Software Engineer Alex Weisen announced the return of the feature:
“For those of you who have taken the plunge and are using desktop Hangouts in Gmail, Google+, and the Chrome extension, we’ve heard loud and clear that you miss the ability to make calls from Gmail, so today, we’re happy to announce it’s back – and better than before! Even better: calls to the US and Canada are now free from all countries where Hangouts calling is available. And international rates remain super, super low.
Today’s launch also improves the desktop calling experience in a number of ways. For example: you can add multiple phone numbers and video participants to the same call; and you can play sound effects (like applause or laughter) with the Google Effects app.
To make a call from Hangouts, just look for the new phone icon in Gmail, or for the new “Call a phone” menu item in Google+ and the Chrome extension. And of course: if you haven’t yet tried Hangouts in Gmail, you can always click your profile photo in the chat list and select “Try the new Hangouts.”
Making calls from Hangouts is rolling out over the next couple of days. As we’ve said before: Hangouts is designed to be the future of Google Voice, and making and receiving calls is just the beginning. So stay tuned for future updates.”
There is no information on when the voice-calling feature will roll out to the mobile application. But we’re expecting it any time soo now. Google is also expected to add SMS integration to Hangouts soon.
Hangouts for Android can be download from Google Play here, and for iOS from the App Store here.