SMS messages, animated gifs and location sharing to come to Hangouts app for Android

As expected. Google has announced a few new features to the Android Hangouts app during their Google+ event today. There are three new features coming:

  • Locations sharing
  • Animated gif support in chats
  • SMS messaging support

We reckon the first two have their fans, and we can see that they would be useful, but let's be honest — SMS support is what everyone wanted. With Google's planned changes to the messaging API we predicted this would happen, and we're glad to see it wasn't announced as a Kit Kat-only feature.

No exact word on when we should see any updates, and Vic Gundotra simply said they were happy to announce this today. We'll be on the lookout for it, and we imagine many of you will be, too.

Jerry Hildenbrand
Senior Editor — Google Ecosystem

Jerry is an amateur woodworker and struggling shade tree mechanic. There's nothing he can't take apart, but many things he can't reassemble. You'll find him writing and speaking his loud opinion on Android Central and occasionally on Twitter.