As the messaging market continues to heat up, app developers continue adding features that will help them not only stand apart, but remain competitive with the growing competition. To that end, Google has provided its Hangouts messaging application with a few new features.
The most notable of these new features is stickers, which continue to erode the hill that emoticons have been king of since the dawn of instant messaging services. These new stickers are available on iOS as of now. Android users, meanwhile, will have to remain content with the knowledge that they now have bug free SMS and MMS.
Another notable feature is the introduction of short video messages similar to those found on Vine or Snapchat. Users can record videos up to 10 seconds long to share with friends. The videos will be on a continuous loop, again similar to Vine.
Location sharing is also part of the update, as is picture-in-picture video calling and two-pane conversation views for iPad users. The app is now also fully optimized for iOS 7.
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