Google is killing SMS support for Hangouts

Google is streamlining its messaging apps - or so they say.

Hangouts will no longer support SMS texting, the company announced along with several other updates in a blog post on Friday. As previously reported, hangouts will be split into Meet and Chat. Google Talk, the company's outdated chat service, is finally being fully transitioned to Hangouts. The company is also killing Google+ circles and some Google Labs plugins.

While this shouldn't impact iOS users much, The company recently renamed and announced Android Messages (formerly Messenger) as the default SMS app for Android phones. This came along with more steps toward RCS, a more advanced protocol than SMS. "In the next few weeks, you’ll see a notification in the classic Hangouts app to switch to another SMS app already on your phone for SMS, or to download Android Messages if one isn’t available" the company said in the blog post. Read more...