Users of Gmail’s instant messaging service Google Talk consider it like a nice constant, to the point that it was called “Gchat”. Designed to be used directly from Gmail, always at hand, and very easy to use, it was actually a very good chat service – and in a sense, an unexpected social network.
Recently, Google is trying to streamline its services, and a few days ago Mountain View announced that by the end of June Google Talk would stop working, for all users. It will be replaced by Hangouts, a service which in recent years has been significantly improved with the addition of “Hangouts Chat”, to improve its IM features.
This process of centralization has killed another feature, which is the standard text message: from now on it will be handled through Android Messages, the main app that Google developed to manage messages with contacts – unless you use some other system from the manufacturer of your phone, of course.
And if you are a veteran, we bet you can navigate between Google’s apps for group messaging and communications, so you’ll know whether to use Google Hangouts for your video calls or use Google Duo (an app for… video calls). For communicating with your contacts, you can use Hangouts Chat or Google Allo, according to the occasion (Allo is an app… for instant messaging – but it’s strongly influenced by artificial intelligence).
If you have a headache in front of all these options, some of which overlap considerably, don’t worry: we have it too.