Google pulling the plug on SMS-support in Hangouts app.
3 years after they initially adding the SMS function Google admits failing yet again what they promised.
«Turn Hangouts into a truly universal messaging solution»
It’s become pretty clear to me that Google can’t create a communication platform at all!
Later they’ve created Allo and Duo, anothet useless chat-app and a video-chat-app nobody uses!
It’s actually comed to the point I’ve given up on Google, forcing me to use OneDrive for storage, Office 365 for document handling and Facebook Messenger for communication.
What happened after Vic Gundotra left Google? I miss him a lot!!
http://www.computerworld.com/article/3185268/mobile-apps/google-hangouts-sms.html//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js
John Holme Blogg 
yeah, they are really all over the place atm… I wonder how the decision making prosess behind this was like -if any..
LikerLiker
Yeah, it seem they have no plan! Just Beta after another Beta.
LikerLiker
yeah, their messaging apps (I believe it’s six so far) is really just a big mess by now, I don’t get it -how/why do they think that people will invest time in them if they always keeps destroying/ripping them apart and by that making people start all over again with another app. How do they think this approach will gain any user base for any of those apps, I really, really don’t get it.
Hangouts is/was good, it needed some TLC, no doubt, but totally ripping it apart makes no sense at all.
LikerLiker
.
LikerLiker
Removing SMS from Hangouts is the final nail in the coffin for Google as a messaging company.
That means they only have the Messenger sms app for Android as an sms-capable platform.
Not that the SMS support in Hangouts was awesome, it certainly had it’s flaws, but it was as close as they ever got to a functioning multi-platform multi-protocol chat system.
Yet another awkward product decision in what has certainly been an uninspired couple of years for Google.
These days, it seems like when Google closes one door, Microsoft opens another.
LikerLiker
Just what they need, I think they will have six messaging platforms! They should have just one.
LikerLiker
Not sure they should only have one client, but only one platform certainly seems like the way they should move it towards.
Then again, they’re probably spending far too much resources keeping Hangouts operational than they can make back from the corporate market, so their move to go for a lightweight and uncomplicated (read: cheap) platform when they are trying to catch data from a billion indians was probably a factor when creating Allo.
LikerLiker
This is quite sad news, I totally miss G+HOA but still used the regular hangout to connect via video & text & photo-sharing with my son who lives out of state – great thing was I could use it with a tracphone in an area where there was wifi & not have to worry about using up my tracphone minutes
LikerLiker