![]() ![]() Hangouts shared videos right away, so I know they don’t have to do it like this. Here are all the problems I’ve encountered: - Can’t share files unless they’re in Google Drive (Google trying to limit you to using their products) - Videos are uploaded when you share them, which means it takes FOREVER. I’m so tired of this nonsensical app that I have to say something. Once again, I’m waiting a ridiculous amount of time for a friend’s video to upload in Google Chat so I can watch it. If you’re hoping to do more with it, you should look elsewhere for a more thoughtfully designed, and scalable, communication method. If you’re only using the phone app and only for chatting with a limited number of friends socially, which is clearly the use case they have decided to laser focus on, you’ll be fine with it. The conversations are spaced relatively far apart and take up way too much screen real estate. The alphabetical sorting of conversations means hunting down the person you were just talking to. It’s completely unwieldy with more than 20 active conversations. I used Hangouts and now use Chat in a professional environment, for more casual short form comms, and it’s clear after 6 weeks of heavy use that Chat wasn’t designed for anything more than light usage. Google Chat is at its best on the mobile app, but if you’re using it regularly, across mobile and in the desktop chrome extension, you’ll quickly see the questionable choices made by the developers. Unfortunately, that’s about where the improvements end. That’s really nice and a feature we were hoping for coming from Hangouts. When portrait photos are attached from your photo library, they seem to come through with the proper rotation intact.Google Chat added the ability to have rooms where specific topic threads can be created. The more reliable solution is not to use the camera within Hangouts to snap photos, but to take pictures separately, using the standard Android camera. Many users report that the problem is erratic and that clearing application data from the Android Applications Manager may help, at least some of the time. This is a specific issue related to Hangouts on certain Android phones when pictures are sent over MMS. Photos sent via Hangouts over MMS taken in portrait mode automatically rotate and turn into landscape photos Notifications can also be suspended indefinitely on a per-user basis by selecting the gear icon in a Hangout window and unchecking the Notifications box there. You can use Menu > Snooze notifications to suspend alerts on that device. On Android devices, you have a few more options. First, you can sign out of Hangouts on devices or browsers form which you don’t want notifications, or close the app altogether. If you’re getting too many notifications, a few solutions are available. You can run IE in Desktop mode by launching it from the desktop instead of the Start screen, and then install Hangouts, or you can simply switch to another browser. To work around this, you have a couple of choices. That’s because Hangouts requires a plug-in to operate on IE, and the full-screen, Metro-style version of IE doesn’t allow any plug-ins at all. If you’re using the Start screen to launch Internet Explorer, you may find that Hangouts simply doesn’t work. Sorry, Metro fans! Launch your browser from the Windows desktop in order to use Chrome. ![]() ![]() ![]() Hangouts doesn’t work in Internet Explorer from the Windows 8 Start screen Image: Christopher Null Did we miss a Hangouts hangup that’s making your life hellish? Let us know in the comments. So we feel our readers’ pain on this one, and that’s why we asked videoconferencing expert Christopher Null how to cure five of its most notable headaches. Just when we think we’ve figured out all the kinks, something else goes awry. But it’s Google Hangouts that PCWorld’s editors have, for several years, tried and largely failed to use for staff meetings with remote users. Editor’s note: To be fair to Google Hangouts, Skype has its problems, too. ![]()
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