Google just did a stupid thing recently. They replaced Google Talk app for Android (and iOS) completely with the new Hangout app. And why exactly is this stupid?? Here is the answer from me (people may differ).
1. I can not see which of my friends are online..In Talk, I used to see a green/red/yellow icons next to their names so that I know their status (available/busy/idle, respectively). With the new Hangout app, I am completely blind about this..heck, I don;t have any idea about who’s online.
2. I can’t set my status (available/busy) in Hangout. Forget about being invisible – that’s not at all possible which means you are exposing yourself to that nagging friend/co-worker of yours!
How do I get back my Talk app?? I can’t find it in Play Store..
Interestingly, this is what some of the people at Google had to say about this. Read it, it is very funny:
“We’re upgrading Gmail video chat to Hangouts for all Gmail users over the course of the next few weeks. If your account has already been upgraded, there isn’t a way to return to the old video chat, as we are now going to be using a more modern video calling technology.
Thanks for your understanding!”Here’s another one:“I’m sorry to say but Hangouts is going to replace talk at all once it has been rolled-out globally.
Don’t worry that much about who’s online or offline, the great thing on Hangouts is, your messages are delivered for sure – no matter if the person is online or offline!
However, on your mobile you see friends that are currently not “online” at that time grayed out. Online members are displayed in “full” color and on the web extension you’ll see a green line below their photo.
Hope that helps.”
Yeah, really that was ‘really helpful’.
So, THIS is WHAT you SHOULD do TO GET BACK YOUR TALK APP in ANDROID phone.
- Go to Settings and then to Applications.
- Select Manage Applications
- Select ‘ALL’ to see the list of all the applications installed in your phone.
- Scroll down and find the ‘Hangout’ app.
- Click it
- Select ‘Uninstall /Updates’
- You will be asked to confirm your command, say yes.
- That’s it!!!