Google’s Hangouts, like Facebook’s Messenger, has always been rather joined at the hip with the company’s Google Plus social network, but SMS support added last year really seemed to open the social app to new users. This support gave users the ability to send both SMS messages and Hangout messages from the app. Thankfully, this isn’t the feature that’s getting axed.
this feature largely benefited those who haven’t yet jumped onto a smartphone
Google has announced that it is discontinuing its separate SMS for Hangouts feature that had limited availability and basically allowed you to receive messages from the app as a text message on your phone, similar to Facebook’s Messenger notifications. Obviously this feature largely benefited those who haven’t yet jumped onto a smartphone such as many users in developing countries, so these users might view the announced axing of the service as a surprise.
SMS for Hangouts will no longer function as of July 2. For those of you who do use the feature, you can either utilize the mobile browser for accessing Hangouts through the web or by way of a smartphone if you happen to own one or are planning to own one in the future.
Google Hangouts is available for iOS and Android. Does the SMS for Hangouts sunset affect you?