Hangouts adds proper status indicators, improved contacts management

Making it easier to find the people you want to converse with most

Along with notable updates to Gmail and Google Voice, Hangouts is receiving a bump to version 1.2 to add new features. The latest update makes it drastically easier to see who is online and available for chat and who is not, with green chat bubbles indicating online and grey ones indicating offline. When you're browsing through your contacts list you'll also now see new organization to put "People you Hangout with" at the top, "Suggested People" underneath and "Other Contacts" at the bottom.

You can also long press on contacts in Hangouts to hide them from ever appearing if you'd prefer to clean up the list. Now when you receive an invite to a Hangout, you'll see that invite above all of your conversations, which keeps it from getting buried underneath other active conversations. And last but not least, you can pinch and zoom pictures that you receive.

The update is rolling out over the next couple of days, so go take a look in the Play Store and see if you're one of the initial batch.

Via: +Randall Sarafa

Andrew Martonik

Andrew was an Executive Editor, U.S. at Android Central between 2012 and 2020.