Google launched Nexus 5 on 31st October and with that came Android 4.4 – KitKat. Hangouts v2.0.012 comes with support of SMS, sending and receiving animated GIFs, location sharing and many other improvements. This latest version of Hangouts has been extracted from the Nexus 5 devices.
On launching Hangouts you’ll be asked to enable SMS integration. You can enable/disable SMS integration whenever you wish to in the Settings section. Hangouts doesn’t ask you to set that as the default SMS app. The default SMS app remains the same, old one.
You can now share your locations with your friends and send/receive animated GIFs.
Moods is another new addition. It’s basically like status updates in WhatsApp and Hike.
The APK download link is mentioned at the bottom of this post.
To install this APK file, you’ll have to enable installation from Unknown Sources in your Android settings section. Go to Settings > Security and enable the Unknown Sources option.
Some users have reported crash reports/bugs with some devices running this updated version. As for me, I’ve not experienced any crashes.
If you are enthusiastic about trying the new SMS integration, download the APK right now, or you can choose to wait till Google updates Hangouts on Google Play Store.
Link : Download Hangouts v2.0.012
One Comment
Hangouts will not drive mms on the HTC One (4.3).
Google Now furthermore smashes, but that can be resolved with changing the language to anything other than your own native language.