Hangouts with SMS integration slowly rolling out to Android users

BY GreenBot Staff

Published 7 Nov 2013

It looks like you won’t have to wait for Android 4.4 (Kit Kat) to hit your device to get the new SMS-integrated version of ’s chat app called Hangouts. The company began rolling out the official update today.

Hangouts lets you send Talk text messages from the same application, as well as engage in video chat. You can also embed animated GIFs in conversations or let contacts know what device you’re chatting on from what location.

There are a few caveats associated with the update, however. The SMS MMS integration that announced last week will only work with devices running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Swich above. so, if your device comes with a separate text-messaging app that you can’t remove, you’ll see messages sent to both applications, meaning added data clogging up your phone.

though the update is live today, it may take some time before you see it on your Android device, provided it has one of the right versions of Android.