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It’s been a while since Google announced that it would split Hangout into two separate services – Chat and Meet. For workspace accounts, the transition to chat started last year, but person account holders only received a fuzzy “first half of 2021” ETA. For a few lucky accounts, the migration started early, in August 2020, and continued throughout the year and into early 2021 (we’ve received dozens of tips since the original). Now things appear to be more official as Google recognizes the transition and calls it a Google Chat “preview”.
Ars Technica Ron Amadeo is one of the first users to spot him and he says all of his contacts are available on the Chat app. This is what we expected since Google promised that Hangouts conversations, contacts, and saved history would be automatically migrated. Unfortunately – probably because this is a preview – group chats are still not available.
My Google Chat now shows this “Preview” message from Hangouts.
It looks like all of my individual contacts are working and can be accessed through the search bar.
The only feature missing 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 do not make the recipient’s phone ring as an incoming call. Instead, they send a “video conference” invitation link, which isn’t as convenient as it used to be with Hangouts. While there is no guarantee, this quirk can be resolved 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.
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