Google Hangouts for iOS Gets Voice Calling, Google Voice Integration

[Anti-Lucifer]

Google hangouts is just amazing - did you guys even try out the online video chatting? Up to like 4 or 5 people conferencing VIDEO at the same time. Facetime is crap comapred this this! Each of the videos will show up when that party speaks!

Apple is just falling behind on ideas....

 

[derek4484]

One more step towards killing the phone system. I like it. I hope Apple makes something like Facetime except for voice only (or iMessage for voice, whatever). EDIT: They added it to iOS 7.

I like killing the phone system as well. However the only problem is, as more people move away from SMS and cellular calls, the phone companies just raise the price of their data packages. Right now they are charging $70/month for 2GB of data. This used to be only $30/month. They used to make all their money off of cellular "minutes" and SMS. Now they almost give those away and are charging huge amounts for data. So, the consumer never wins.

 

[pokerplayer73]

Has anybody been able to receive calls? I have tried all settings on Google and on hangouts app.

 

[joejoejoe]

Is it still laggy?

Does it still take minutes to load a conversation?

Do notification badges remain stubborn and refuse to clear themselves?

I hate this app. Gchat used to be so useful for me.

 

[zammi]

new features in this version

Google has added 5 new features like, See which of your friends is using Hangouts, and who can be reached right now, etc, also check out Vitelglobal's Voip calling.

 

[9000]

I like killing the phone system as well. However the only problem is, as more people move away from SMS and cellular calls, the phone companies just raise the price of their data packages. Right now they are charging $70/month for 2GB of data. This used to be only $30/month. They used to make all their money off of cellular "minutes" and SMS. Now they almost give those away and are charging huge amounts for data. So, the consumer never wins.

If you're using 3G/4G data to send text messages, you only need a few kilobytes per message. They also can't raise the price of data above the market price without colluding (as I suspect they have done with SMS).

 

[joelsg]

I had zero devices, and decided to buy the ipad mini (retina) with cellular plan, with the goal of making it double as my mobile phone. Google Voice + Talkatone is theoretically ideal for free voice and SMS texting, but Talkatone is glitchy with phone calls (and has ads). So now I use my Google Voice number-Talkatone for texts, and Google Voice-Hangouts for voice, all on my ipad. A little messy, but it works pretty well. Now I have unlimited voice and text (anywhere where there is wifi or cellular) and unlimited data (+hotspot) on my ipad mini--all for $15 per month. Can't complain about that. I just wish Hangouts for iOS included SMS, then I could dump Talkatone. Maybe someday.