Oct 8, 2013

Some new screenshots suggest support for SMS messaging is close to being included in Google’s Hangouts messaging platform. Support for SMS messaging was one of the glaring omissions when the new Hangouts app was released earlier this year, though Google has always maintained their plan was to unify messaging protocols including SMS. As part of the support for text messaging, it appears Hangouts will also support MMS, although it is not clear whether users will be able to send videos as MMS using Hangouts. In addition to the SMS and MMS integration, the new version will also allow sharing of videos via the Hangouts platform.

These additions are expected to be part of the next Hangouts update, to version 1.3. Unfortunately, sources did not reveal any information about a possible timeline. However, Google is close to releasing the KitKat version of Android, which would seem to be a good time to also release an update to their messaging platform.