It’s been a while since Google announced it would split Hangout into two separate services: Chat and Meet. For workspace accounts, the transition to Chat began last year, but personal account holders were only given a vague “first half of 2021” estimated time of arrival. For a few lucky accounts, the migration started early, in August 2020, and continued throughout the year and early 2021 (we’ve received dozens of tips since the original one). Now things seem to be more official as Google acknowledges the transition and calls it an “example” of Google Chat.
Ars Technica’s Ron Amadeo is one of the first users to notice this and according to him all his contacts are available on the Chat app. This is in line with what we expected as Google promised that Hangouts calls, contacts, and saved history would be automatically migrated. Unfortunately – probably because it’s a preview – group chats are still not available.
My Google Chat will now display this Hangouts sample message.
It seems all my individual contacts are working and accessible from the search bar.
The only missing feature now is group chat. pic.twitter.com/Vf8mLahrbE
– Ron Amadeo (@RonAmadeo) February 24, 2021
Ron also points out that video calls made through the app will not ring the recipient’s phone as an incoming call. Instead, they send an invite link to a “video meeting,” which isn’t as useful as it used to be with Hangouts. While there is no certainty, this quirk can be addressed when Google makes the Chat app available for all free, personal accounts.
The current “preview” rollout appears to be quite limited and none of my personal accounts have received it yet.
