Google’s Hangouts App for iPad Is an Ugly Mess
At yesterday’s Google I/O event Google announced the very promising Hangouts app, a sort of unified messaging app / service for iOS, Android and web. And the Hangouts app for the iPad and iPhone was released yesterday too.
The iPad app is a horrible, ugly mess. There a number of very good iPad apps with ordinary, basic user interfaces. But Hangouts has a drab, clumsy UI that looks very much like it was smacked together with little to no thought or effort.
That’s one of the app’s main screens above. It’s just sad looking right? Hit the break for a duo more screenshots of the app in all its glory.
Here’s a typical Hangouts screen when having a text talk:
What’s going on with all the large amounts of blank space? And the goofy positioning of the text blocks? It just feels like it’s not meant to be this way. Like somebody embarked working out this screen design and then just left behind about it.
Here’s a screen from a movie call I was on last night:
I don’t think that one needs any words.
The Hangouts release on Android isn’t much slicker. The app shows up in the Google Play store with its fresh name and fresh app icon – but it’s available only as an update to the Google Talk app. OK, fair enough – but once the update is done the app is still called Google Talk, no fresh name, no fresh icon. Bizarre non-branding of a fresh app that Google made a big deal of in their keynote event.
It’s a shame that the launch of Hangouts is so unimpressive, because the app itself seems like it has good potential. Unlike FaceTime it has decent, multi platform support, and offers a number of cool features. Here’s a little of its App Store description and some of those features:
Hangouts brings one-on-one and group conversations to life with photos, emoji, and movie calls for free. Connect with friends across computers, phones and tablets.
— Group conversations are better than ever. Send photos or emoji, see when people are engaged in the Hangout and message friends anytime, even if they’re not connected right now.
— Movie calls make Hangouts more joy. Turn any conversation into a movie call with up to ten friends.
— All your friends can use Hangouts. Hangouts works on computers, phones, and tablets, so you can connect with everyone.
More Hangouts awesomeness:
— View and proceed your Hangouts across devices.
— Get notifications just once. After you see an alert, it’ll be eliminated on other devices.
— Snooze your notifications if you’d choose to react later.
— See what you talked about in the past, including collective photos and your movie call history.
— Keep a record of any Hangout for just a brief period of time by turning history off.
— View collections of photos collective from each of your Hangouts.
— Choose from over eight hundred fifty emoji to express what’s on your mind.
Have any of you been using Hangouts on iPad or iPhone yet? If so, what do you think of it?
Patrick Jordan
Founder and Editor in Chief of iPad Insight. Spouse, father to a lovely daughter, Commander of the Armies of the North, dog paramour (especially Labs), Austinite, former Londoner, IT consultant, big sports nut, iPad and mobile tech blogger, mobile apps junkie.
Google – s Hangouts App for iPad Is an Ugly Mess, iPad Insight
Google’s Hangouts App for iPad Is an Ugly Mess
At yesterday’s Google I/O event Google announced the very promising Hangouts app, a sort of unified messaging app / service for iOS, Android and web. And the Hangouts app for the iPad and iPhone was released yesterday too.
The iPad app is a horrible, ugly mess. There a number of very good iPad apps with elementary, basic user interfaces. But Hangouts has a drab, clumsy UI that looks very much like it was smacked together with little to no thought or effort.
That’s one of the app’s main screens above. It’s just sad looking right? Hit the break for a duo more screenshots of the app in all its glory.
Here’s a typical Hangouts screen when having a text talk:
What’s going on with all the massive amounts of blank space? And the goofy positioning of the text blocks? It just feels like it’s not meant to be this way. Like somebody began working out this screen design and then just left behind about it.
Here’s a screen from a movie call I was on last night:
I don’t think that one needs any words.
The Hangouts release on Android isn’t much slicker. The app shows up in the Google Play store with its fresh name and fresh app icon – but it’s available only as an update to the Google Talk app. OK, fair enough – but once the update is done the app is still called Google Talk, no fresh name, no fresh icon. Bizarre non-branding of a fresh app that Google made a big deal of in their keynote event.
It’s a shame that the launch of Hangouts is so unimpressive, because the app itself seems like it has excellent potential. Unlike FaceTime it has decent, multi platform support, and offers a number of cool features. Here’s a little of its App Store description and some of those features:
Hangouts brings one-on-one and group conversations to life with photos, emoji, and movie calls for free. Connect with friends across computers, phones and tablets.
— Group conversations are better than ever. Send photos or emoji, see when people are engaged in the Hangout and message friends anytime, even if they’re not connected right now.
— Movie calls make Hangouts more joy. Turn any conversation into a movie call with up to ten friends.
— All your friends can use Hangouts. Hangouts works on computers, phones, and tablets, so you can connect with everyone.
More Hangouts awesomeness:
— View and proceed your Hangouts across devices.
— Get notifications just once. After you see an alert, it’ll be liquidated on other devices.
— Snooze your notifications if you’d choose to react later.
— See what you talked about in the past, including collective photos and your movie call history.
— Keep a record of any Hangout for just a brief period of time by turning history off.
— View collections of photos collective from each of your Hangouts.
— Choose from over eight hundred fifty emoji to express what’s on your mind.
Have any of you been using Hangouts on iPad or iPhone yet? If so, what do you think of it?
Patrick Jordan
Founder and Editor in Chief of iPad Insight. Hubby, father to a lovely daughter, Commander of the Armies of the North, dog paramour (especially Labs), Austinite, former Londoner, IT consultant, hefty sports nut, iPad and mobile tech blogger, mobile apps junkie.