I got all excited when I heard about Google’s new Hangouts app. Finally I would get a real Google app that allowed me to chat with my Google Talk friends as well as the occasional Google+ friend. Hangouts is Google’s new unified messaging app that allows conversations between all of Google chat services. It also allows for video calls, group conversations and video conferencing, photo sharing, and cross platform chatting. iOS users can chat with friends using Android devices as well as computers.

Now all of this sounds great, but as we know, Google has a track record of not really coming out with the greatest of apps when they are first released and they usually take a few iterations before they start to get things right. Is Google Hangouts the same way? In my opinion, yes. The app itself has promise, but it’s far from what I would call perfect.

First the good stuff. Yes, I can finally chat with Google Talk users on a native Google app. Second, I can also now chat with the few Google+ friends I have without having that whole Google+ thing getting in the way. You can do group chats as well as group video chats and it’s possible to jump between video chats and text chats without having to drop either. It even has push notifications.

Hangouts has a fairly clean interface. Instead of having the main screen being that of the “friends” list, you are instead greeted with a blank Hangouts list. Up top there is an icon for settings and an icon to add a new Hangout. Tap + to start a new conversation. Here it will bring up the friends list. It’s basically an entire list of people you have on both G+ and GTalk. They aren’t separated into groups and it’s just one long list. Up top however they show a group of random friends as much larger tiles. Now, if you’re familiar with the Hangouts feature in Google+, video chatting here works exactly the same way as does group video chatting. Layout even seems the same. You can have up to 10 people in a video Hangout.

There are a few neat settings that you can toggle in the settings menu. You can activate a snooze feature that will turn off notifications for a set amount of time. You can also customize how chat requests are handled as well as who can contact you.

There are a few things I don’t like about Google Hangouts at the moment. For starters, I wish there was a way to distinguish between Google Talk users and Google+ users as they are all just jumbled together. Second, I also kind of wish they would separate my huge list of friends into groups that I can minimize or maximize as there are some groups with people I know I’ll never chat with and would rather not have them show up in the main list. Another issue I have is that there are people showing up in my list of people to Hangout with that I don’t even have Circled. There’s a reason I don’t have them circled so why are they showing up? Last but not least, in the list of people to hangout with, up top there are random people that they make as huge tiles. I can’t change these random people and replace them with actual favorites and there’s no way to even reorder them. Why? I don’t know if these get automatically replaced as you start chatting with certain people more frequently but I would much rather be able to do this manually.

In it’s current state, it still needs improvements. Yes it’s great that I can now chat with my Google Talk friends with a real Google app and initiate video calls, but I don’t like the way the app organizes my contacts list. I want to manually organize my list and put them in groups or have them show up in circles but I can’t. Yes I know I can search for people, but why if I can just have my favorites show up where they are supposed to and hide those who I know I will never talk to. It has potential, it’s just not quite there yet. It’s still pretty useful though as it allows me to chat with all these people without all that extra Google+ stuff.

I do however suggest you check it out as it is free and you may actually like it.

App Store Link: Google Hangouts
Version: 1.0.1
Developer: Google
Price: Free
Compatible Devices: (Universal App) iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (4th generation), iPod touch (5th generation), iPad 2 Wi-Fi, iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G, iPad (3rd generation), iPad Wi-Fi + 4G, iPad (4th generation), iPad Wi-Fi + Cellular (4th generation), iPad mini and iPad mini Wi-Fi + Cellular. Requires iOS 6.1 or later. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.

Description

Hangouts brings one-on-one and group conversations to life with photos, emoji, and video calls for free.  Connect with friends across computers, phones and tablets.

— Group conversations are better than ever.  Send photos or emoji, see when people are engaged in the Hangout and message friends anytime, even if they’re not connected right now.

— Video calls make Hangouts more fun.  Turn any conversation into a video call with up to 10 friends.

— All your friends can use Hangouts.  Hangouts works on computers, phones, and tablets, so you can connect with everyone.

More Hangouts awesomeness:
— View and continue your Hangouts across devices.
— Get notifications just once.  After you see an alert, it’ll be removed on other devices.
— Snooze your notifications if you’d prefer to respond later.
— See what you talked about in the past, including shared photos and your video call history.
— Keep a record of any Hangout for just a short period of time by turning history off.
— View collections of photos shared from each of your Hangouts.
— Choose from over 850 emoji to express what’s on your mind.

Notes:
— Mobile carrier and ISP charges may apply.

[via App Store]