RIP, Google Talk. :’-(

Twice this week I seemed to sing the praises of some neat advances in Google’s apps/ecosystem; today, however…

I received the notification this morning of Google Talk’s upgrade to Hangouts. (Yeah, I know I could’ve sought out the upgrade yesterday, but just letting things come in their own time is more fun–kind of like getting a surprise gift. Additionally, I’ve been trying not to search out what’s going on–again, the whole surprise thing.)

After reading the promises of what was now available, I found myself excited and a bit giddy, anxiously awaiting for the app to hurry up and install so that I could play with it! But, then…

…I discovered that I hate it.

*sigh*

Hangouts is so much more than Talk–aka Google Talk, GTalk, GChat; in addition to the “traditional” concepts of an IM client/service, Hangouts brings the ability for a mini-chatroom environment among a maximum of ten participants–a feature of the former Google Hangout service, which has also been absorbed into the new Hangouts. Video conferencing, “calls”, and a wider variety of emoticons/emoji are also available in the new Hangouts–SMS and integration/absorption of Google Voice are allegedly forthcoming, as well–making the service/app an uber-end-all messaging app. Oh, and did I mention the cross-platform abilities, with the service having an app on iOS, and the Chrome plugin available on the PC?

…but…

…it pushes Google+, a service which I still don’t use–well, sort of. I do have a G+ profile–again, something I was part-way pushed into–and I have managed to find ways to push content to my profile–in the off-chance that someone I know actually creates a profile and wishes to seek me out. (I also “had” to create a profile so that I could ready myself to create a page for HarrisonEMA, should G+ ever become popular…)

… functionality is–well, I dunno–it works, but the interface is missing something…

On the Android device, I must say that the appearance of the app is rather nice, but use and navigation–despite conforming to the “new” Android standards–is a bit clunky and confusing. I could say that my opinion/experience is due to having an older OS, but a quick search in G+ reveals that people running ICS and Jellybean are thinking the same thing. (Yes, I used G+; I mean, where else am I going to get the best voice on Hangout usage?)

Playing with Hangouts on the PC is even worse than on the phone…

In order to use Hangouts, one must either go through their Gmail, use the sidebar that pops up on Google+, or install a Chrome addition; I briefly checked it out on G+ and installed it for Chrome–I didn’t dare mess around with it in Gmail, though I’m sure it will be forced upon me. In it’s more “native” environment in Google+, Hangouts seems to function okay and is somewhat more visually appealing; via the Chrome extension, though… In the Chrome version, Hangouts appears as a rather minimalistic in color and design, always-on-top-overlaid box. [Always-on-top can be disabled; when not actively being used the box can be “minimized” to the lower right of the browser window.] Personally, I don’t care for a Chrome extension–Chrome has too large of a footprint in memory consumption and CPU cycles as it is; so why would I want to be forced into adding to this mess? Maybe if I were one of the few using a Chromebook…

A feature of it’s design that is common in all iterations, though varying in appearence, is the contact list–and it ain’t too pretty or intelligent, either. The contact list will display contacts that are used “the most often”–favorites, if you will–irregardless of their presense on Hangouts or any Google product. Contacting a person via Hangouts that is offline will–or should, rather, as I am speculating–deliver an “offline” message to that contact for later receipt; contacting a person who is not using Hangouts will result in the delivery of an invite via SMS, email, etc. The person receiving an invite will be taken to the Hangouts introduction/sign-up page, which will then eventually ask for a Gmail/Google+/Google Account sign-up, and so, and so, and so, and so… Remember that comment I made about it pushing Google+?

*sigh*

…so, I’ll either be downgrading my phone back to the old Talk app, or giving up on Talk altogether–likely the latter, where I foresee the old interface being blocked/killed. For now the old Talk apps and third party XMPP/Jabber clients still work, but I haven’t found anything anywhere saying that Hangouts is using XMPP, or whether there’s just some sort of translation gateway in place for the time-being. Fortunately, I can easily give-up on Talk–the only contact I have is my wife; it’s been that way since ’05–none of my other friends/family ever really drank the Google Kool-Aid…

…I’m just afraid of what will happen when Google adds Voice into this mess; I really don’t want to give up on another service…

[ADDENDUM]

…it looks like an XMPP translation doohickey might be what’s going on for now. According to an article by The Verge, Google did drop XMPP for the new Hangouts.

I wonder how long Google will keep the XMPP access available…