Kakudo replicates four finger gestures app switching in a way, and brings it to Android to lets users quickly switch between apps via swiping from the left or right edges of the device’s screen. This makes it fairly easy to work between two apps in conjunction, such as copy-paste operations from app to the other, jotting down your favorite quotes off the internet from the web browser to a note taking app etc. Upon swiping from either edges, the screen vibrates and instantly switches to the other app in line.

Kakudo provides a number of settings that you can turn on and off according to your preferences. The settings panel not only lets you make changes to how the feature works, but also let you turn it off altogether. The available set of options include toggling swipe behavior for available set of features, enabling or disabling the vibration function, and adjusting sensitivity of the swipe gesture. Another interesting bit is the ability to place a few apps in a favorites bar for quick access, that can be brought up via swiping up from the bottom edge of the screen.

You can tap the plus button to add your favorites apps or toggles to the favorites bar. Not only can you add any type of app shortcut there, but also quick toggles for WI-FI, brightness, GPS, Bluetooth, Camera, Sound and so on. In short, it gives you a lot of flexibility and control over how Kakudo should work for you.

In a nutshell, this tiny little app unlocks an all new multi-tasking possibility and brings an intuitive way for switching between running apps. Kokuda is available at Google Play Store in Lite and Pro ($0.99) versions. The download links of both the variants are provided below.

Download Kakudo Lite For Android

Download Kakudo Pro For Android

[via XDA-Developers]

Read Kakudo Brings iPad-Like Quick App Switching Gestures To Android by Waqas Ahmed on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

Once you’ve updated the app, the interface will be the first and most obvious change you will notice. You can tap the little ‘i’ button to view file properties. From there, you can also set the file to be viewable offline.

When viewing excel sheets, you can now change the font (type and size) and the cell highlight color. From any file editor, you can view file properties as well; just open the options menu and tap ‘Properties’.

A new ‘scan’ options has been added to the add file menu with this update. This option lets you take pictures with your camera and provided the images contain legible text, it uses OCR to convert them into PDFs with searchable text.

The quality of the scan will depend on the condition of whatever it is you’re scanning, and also on the amount of light in the room when scanning. The files are converted to PDF automatically. For some reason, the app scanned receipts upside down in our testing. This might just be specific to the device used to test the app, and can easily be fixed by turning the document upside down.

The update may not have been announced ceremoniously, but it’s definitely a big one. The file editors are getting smarter and perhaps we will soon be able to take pictures directly from within the Google Drive app and save it as part of the document itself. For now, the Scan option will let you take a picture of just about anything, but it’s always saved as a PDF. Other updates include file previews within the app, and some bug fixes. One small caveat with the update and its new features is that files can be downloaded for offline viewing in Android Honeycomb or higher only.

Download Google Drive For Android

Read Google Drive For Android Gets Card UI, OCR, Selective Offline Sync & More by Fatima Wahab on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

Google’s attempts at standardizing Android phones’ button layouts haven’t been all too fruitful, as just about every Android smartphone manufacturer – save for Sony and Motorola – have their own special layout for their flagship devices. The HTC One, for example, uses two capacitive buttons for Home and Back, while high-end offerings from Samsung and LG phones feature two capacitive buttons for Menu & Back, and a hard button for Home.

So, at present we have two types of button layouts out in the market: Purely virtual keys, and a combination of hard keys plus capacitive ones.

I have spent a respectable amount of time using phones from both of these camps, and personally dig Samsung’s combination of hard buttons and capacitive ones. With solely capacitive button phones like the Xperia P and HTC One X, there is no distinct boundary between the different keys, which can result in misplaced taps. This is all the more problematic with purely virtual, on-screen buttons like in Nexus 4. By keeping a hard Home button in the middle that also separates the two capacitive buttons for Menu and Back, Samsung and LG have eliminated any chance of accidental button taps.

Of course, one beef I have with Samsung is the functions of these buttons; I don’t quite understand why they don’t adapt Google’s standard of Back, Home and App Switching buttons. Search and Menu now appear within apps wherever they are required but no! Samsung still clings on to the physical Menu button like an overly attached girlfriend.

Having a unique button configuration to maintain a distinct brand identity is understandable, but it comes at the cost of a diminished, inconsistent user experience, and increased headache for developers . It about time Android manufacturers started working properly to kill the beast that is fragmentation.

But that’s just my opinion! I’m clearly against a purely capacitive button layout, but virtual keys have their own, real benefits. They are dynamic in nature so if you are watching a video, the buttons can go away, leaving you to enjoy a full screen view. Bezels become smaller as well*, resulting in bigger displays on smaller device sizes. For instance, Motorola’s virtual key-equipped DROID RAZR HD has a 4.7” display within essentially the same dimensions as the DROID RAZR, which had a 4.3” display and a capacitive button layout. Also, developers have an easier time maintaining a consistent user experience. To sum it up, the world becomes a better place for everyone, except for people who prefer another button layout.

Enough from me; it’s time for you – our readers – to tell us what you think.

Read [Ask The Readers] Physical Or Virtual: Which Android Smartphone Key Layout Do You Prefer? by Awais Imran on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

Upon launch, the player automatically detects your music and presents it all neatly organized in its Holo tabs for artists, recent, albums and songs. You can use right and left swipe gestures to navigate between these sections, while swiping up and down lets you scroll through your music list. The app also detects and displays album cover art next to song titles, and automatically downloads missing covers if enabled under settings. There’s a playback bar at the bottom, complete with next and previous buttons to skip the current song, along with letting you play or pause it. A tiny seekbar above these controls makes it easy to instantly jump to any position in the currently playing song.

A rather useful feature is its ability to automatically fetch song lyrics and album cover from the internet. During our testing, however, it fetched inaccurate or wrong lyrics for certain songs. Though you shouldn’t take it as a deal breaker, as the rest of the features work as advertised. The Now Playing screen lets you toggle repeat and shuffle modes. Akin to the main screen, you can use horizontal swipe gestures to navigate between lyrics, album art and songs lists.

It comes as no surprise that many music apps come with an integrated music equalizer to let you fine tune the lows, mids and highs of your music to your liking, and Now Playing is no exception. It features an effective equalizer, where you can either choose from one of the genre-based presets ranging from hip hop and heavy metal to jazz and pop, or even define your own custom levels. Lastly, the Settings screen of the app lets you adjust a few options like toggling playback controls on the lock screen, deleting the app’s cache, and switching to a dark theme that can come handy on AMOLED displays, etc.

Now Playing is available at Google Play Store for $1.85. You may want to take its 3-day trial version for a spin before shelling out your money.

Download Now Playing Music Player For Android

Download Now Playing Free For Android

Read Now Playing Is An Android Music Player With A Google Now-Inspired UI by Waqas Ahmed on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

New Home Page

The new home page is split into two columns; the larger one is dedicated to photos you or your contacts have uploaded, while the smaller one on the right suggests content or useful links. Each image is accompanied by a thumbnail of the user who uploaded it. You can favorite an image, add a comment, or share it. If the image you’re viewing isn’t from a contact, a small ‘Add’ button next to the user’s thumbnail will allow you to add them to your contacts.

Profile & Cover Photo

Much like every other web service these days, your Flickr profile now has a cover photo, and it makes sense since Flickr is where you’re sharing and uploading images. As you scroll down, you will see that images are now displayed as large tiles. You can also view your photostream as a slideshow.

How Much Better Is Biggr?

Now that you have a whole terabyte of space, you might be wondering just how many photos you can upload to it before it runs out. Flickr’s new home page features a neat little tool that should give you a reasonable estimate of what you can do with that space. Depending on the resolution of the photos you’re uploading, the Biggr tool tells you how many photos of that same resolution will fill 1TB.

New Ad-Free & Double Storage Plans

Your free account with 1TB space features ads, and Flickr is asking for $49.99 a year to get rid of them. If you need more space, you can get twice as much as you get with your free account i.e. 2 TB for $599.99 a year.

Redesigned Android App

Flickr’s Android app, like its web interface, has followed in its iOS variant’s footsteps with a complete UI overhaul that undoubtedly surpasses its previous look. It does support cover photos yet, but photostreams now scroll infinitely and the images appear as large tiles.

Download Flickr For Android

Conclusion

The new Flickr interface is definitely much better than ever, but that’s just in comparison to the way it used to be. If you look at image sharing and hosting services like Instagram, you still feel just how overwhelming and messy Flickr feels. While giving the service a new look, the footer seems to have been left out (or forgotten) entirely. The changes are certainly welcome but for many casual users, the interface might still be more complex than it has to be.

Visit Flickr

Read Flickr Gets New Web, Android App Design, Cover Photos & 1TB Free Space by Fatima Wahab on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

Here are the most significant new features and improvements you can expect from this build:

• Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean with all its official core features like lock screen widgets, daydream, notification actions etc.
• New S4 Lockscreen with different unlock effects and some other tweaks
• New Adapt Display and Professional Photo screen modes from S4
• S4-style Tabbed Settings interface
• S4’s new S-Voice and voice controls for several phone features
• S4 and Note II-style full-screen Samsung apps
• New Smart Switch widget
• Driving mode

and possibly more.

Before you proceed with the installation, do note that this is a leaked internal testing build, and not the final release. Therefore, it might contain some quirks that have yet to be ironed out. That said, if you just can’t wait till the final release is out (we can’t), here’s how to get it up and running on your Galaxy S III.

Disclaimer: Please follow this guide at your own risk. AddictiveTips will not be liable if your device gets damaged or bricked during the process.

Requirements

• International GSM Galaxy S III I9300. Do NOT attempt to flash it to any other variant of the S III.
• Samsung USB drivers
• Leaked Android 4.2.2 XXUFME3 ROM for Galaxy S III
• Odin 3.04 (included in the above file)

Procedure

1. Take a backup of any data that you might need in case you later need to do a factory reset. This includes any data you might have on your internal SD card.
2. Download the ROM’s package and extract the contents of the downloaded zip file to your computer.
3. Download and install Samsung’s USB drivers, if they aren’t already installed.
4. Power your phone off and boot it into download mode by holding Home and Volume-down buttons while powering it back on.
5. Launch Odin on your computer and connect your phone to it via USB. You should get a blue indicator sign on Odin.
6. Click ‘PDA’ in Odin and select the I9300XXUFME3_I9300OJKFME1_HOME.tar.md5 file.
7. Leave everything as it is, and especially make sure that Re-Partition is unchecked.
8. Click ‘Start’ to begin flashing, and wait for the process to finish.

You should now have the latest leaked Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean firmware up and running on your S III.

In case there are any issues like bootloops or force-closes when you reboot your phone after flashing the firmware, reboot your phone into recovery by powering it off and then powering it back on while keeping the Home and Volume-up keys pressed, perform a wipe data/factory reset, and reboot the phone. This WILL delete all your apps, data and internal SD card contents, but your phone should boot and work fine after that. For this reason, taking a backup before flashing anything like this is extremely important.

[Firmware & Screenshots via SamMobile]

Read Install Leaked Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean ROM On Samsung Galaxy S III by Haroon Q Raja on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

The utmost edge Smart Launcher Special holds over the stock Android launcher (and other manufacturer-customized or third-party launchers for that matter) is the gorgeous, minimalist-friendly interface. There are no ugly icons to deal with, nor any cluttered home screens laden with random widgets. In fact, Smart Launcher Special keeps both of them (shortcuts and widgets) separate from one another. The main screen, aka the Quick Start screen, presents app shortcuts arranged in a flower-like shape that looks fairly immaculate, thanks to their uniform design. They are round and can be easily customized to your choice. Existing shortcuts can be removed by dragging them out of your way to the bottom right. In addition, when you tap an icon, a plus button pops up in the middle, letting you add additional shortcuts.

To enter the widgets area, simply tap the minuscule icon at the bottom-right. Likewise, you can tap and hold your finger on the screen to bring up the wallpaper menu. The widgets screen also looks equally nice, and you can place whatever widget you like on it. Unlike the Quick Start screem, the widgets section comprise of multiple home screens.

The app drawer is accessible via its pertaining button at the Quick Start screen or swipe gesture from the left edge, and it keeps your apps well organized under different categories named Communication, Internet, Media, Utility and Settings. This makes it easier to access things you want. If you’re not happy with the preconfigured categories, you can easily customize their names under Settings. The Preferences screen of the launcher lets you customize a plethora of options under Settings and Personalization.

Settings let users toggle functions such as status bar visibility, screen orientation, drawer activation mode, clock, left-handed mode and so on. Similarly, the Personalization section lets you apply cosmetic changes to the app, ranging from clock style and global theme to icon size and categories labels etc.

So, if you like to keep your Android home screen simple and minimal yet functional and elegant, give Smart Launcher Special a shot while the offer lasts. You can download it via the link provided below.

Looking for even more amazing home screen replacements for your Android device? Don’t forget to check out our list of the top free Android launchers out there.

Download Smart Launcher Special For Android (Free for limited time)

Download Smart Launcher For Android (Free)

Download Smart Launcher Pro For Android (Paid)

Read Smart Launcher For Android Boasts A Fast, Minimal Yet Beautiful UI by Waqas Ahmed on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

Google Gives Spotify A Run For Its Money

Google has a bit of a habit of looking at a successful product in a lucrative market, and then doing their best to make a better version of it. In launching Google Play Music All Access with an 18 million+ song catalog, track streaming, unlimited skips, virtually unlimited number of downloadable tracks and intelligent mixing of your own library music, all at $7.99/month (introductory offer), Google is trying its best to beat Spotify on Android and the web.

Be sure to check out our review of Google Play Music All Access.

Unified: Google Talk, Google+ Hangouts, Google+ Messenger Merge Into “Hangouts”

Hangouts for Android, iOS and the web is the ultimate, all-in-one messaging app. It combines Google Talk’s instant messaging service with Google+ Hangouts’ group video chats and Google+ Messenger group messaging features. What’s more? Support for Google Voice and SMS on Android is on the way!

Google+ Gets Redesigned; Adds Amazing ‘Auto Awesome’ & ‘Auto Enhance’ Photo Enhancement Features

Just about every techie I know agrees that Google+ is – features and looks-wise – miles ahead of Facebook. At Google I/O, the tech giant announced awesome features that make Google+ even better! Firstly, Google+ now follows the cards-based design language introduced with Google Now. Secondly, photos uploaded on Google+ are analyzed by Google’s algorithms and then automatically tweaked for noise reduction, tonal distribution, skin softening, red-eye reduction and more, in what Google is calling ‘Auto Enhance’. Lastly, ‘Auto Awesome’ finds patterns in your uploaded photos, and creates animated GIFs of shots taken a few seconds apart, panoramas of photos taken at same location, and choosing the best smiling photo out of a bunch of chaotic family photos to create amazing family portraits.

We have already discussed both the new unified Hangouts messaging platform and updates to Google+, so give it a read for more details.

The Next ‘Nexus’ Smartphone: A Galaxy S4 Running Stock Android

One of the most surprising announcements at Google I/O 2013 was that of a Samsung Galaxy S 4 running Stock Android, without any customizations from Samsung whatsoever. With a price of $649 for a 16GB model, it is the most expensive Nexus device on the market to date, but that is fine considering that – compared to the $349 Nexus 4 – it has a Full HD 1080p display, a 13 megapixel camera, a faster processor, LTE support, expandable storage and a removable battery. The phone will be available fully contract-free on Google Play starting June 26th.

Google Maps Redesigned On Desktop And Android

Google Maps is the most popular as well as most powerful consumer maps application in the world, and the new updates for its Android and desktop web apps further cement this fact. The updated web app follows a new “The Map Is The UI” approach, where the actual map takes over most of the screen, with only the header and a little search bar at the top – no more sidebar! Google Earth, vector maps, Google Offers and Zagat’s trusted restaurant reviews are integrated right inside Maps. To make for a more personalized experience, your home, workplace and local points of interest are also included automatically in the map based on data from Google Now.

The new Google Maps for Desktop is slowly rolling out to invited users. You may request an invite at maps.google.com/preview. Android users should update their apps from Google Play to get the new Google Maps.

Google Search Integrated With Google Now For Voice Search And Other Commands

The rumors were right after all. For Chrome and Chrome OS users, Google Now is now integrated with Google Search. Saying “OK, Google” activates voice search – no typing or tapping required. Voice search has been developed to be more intelligent, so Google remembers what you last searched for, and predicts future searches. But that’s not all; you can also send emails, set reminders and more – all without leaving google.com or the Google Search app.

Google Play Books Allows User-Uploaded EPUBs / PDFs; Syncs Everything Across Android, iOS & Web

Google Play Books has always been at a distant third/fourth place in the eBooks reading app market, but a new feature update is bound to push it up ahead: the ability to upload your own collection of eBooks to the service, and to keep your page positions, bookmarks and notes synced across all platforms on which the service is available, i.e. Android, iOS and the web.

Check out our post to learn how to upload EPUBs to Play Books and read them on Android, iOS and the web.

Developer Features for Android

Rather unexpectedly for an I/O event, Google didn’t reveal the next version of Android this time, though that doesn’t mean the world’s most popular mobile operating system was completely neglected at the event. Google did announce several new features and improvements to Android, but most of them were targeted at developers rather than end users for now. However, it will be the users who will benefit from the fruits of these labors in the end.

The biggest new developer feature has got to be Android Studio – a dedicated IDE built by Google to make developing for Android easy. Apart from that, new APIs and developer features were announced for Google’s Maps and Location services, and Google Cloud Messaging. Several new features were added to the Google Play Developer Console as well, making it much easier for developers to optimize, translate and beta test their apps, with the ability to automatically roll out a beta update to a percentage of users first, and then gradually increase that percentage towards a full release. Lastly, a few major APIs were announced for game developers, allowing them to implement features like cloud save, achievements and leaderboards without having to use their own or third-party cloud services for the purpose.

Synced Notifications Across Android Devices

A major new feature for the end users was also announced: notification syncing across all your devices, meaning if you dismiss a notification from your phone, it’ll automatically disappear from your tablet as well. We will likely have to wait for the implementation of this feature in the next (likely minor) update to Android.

So which announcements do you think were the most significant? Join the poll below to let us know. You may select up to 3 answers out of the 9 available.

Haroon Q. Raja contributed to this post.

Read [Ask The Readers] Which Google I/O 2013 Product Announcements Excited You The Most? by Awais Imran on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

Pheed for Android sports an eye-catching interface. You can start using it by connecting to the service via your Facebook or Twitter. Though you can also alternatively sign up (or sign in if you already have an account) using your email address. If it’s the first time you’re using the service, you’ll have to provide your user account details, along with optional info for your profile such as a short bio, your photo and so on.

Pheed has strict policies regarding the type of content it allows users to share on their timelines. Therefore, make sure you specify an appropriate channel rating like G, PG, PG-13, R, or X. The rating feature also makes it sure that you don’t encounter channels that you may find inappropriate or offending. Next up, you can specify a few initial channels to subscribe to (NASA, Linkin Park, Snoop Dog are already in there), and invite friends via Facebook, Twitter or email.

Once past account setup wizard, you’re presented with Pheed’s landing screen that shares a few similarities with Twitter (Hashtags, anyone?). It presents a similar looking timeline that you can scroll through vertically. Though where Twitter only contains text based contents and with a few exceptions, shows links to related media, Pheeds display all shared content right within your timeline.

Tapping the miniscule buttons at the bottom let you navigate between timeline, search, new pheed (post), notifications and account settings. Pheed’s search feature lets you quickly discover content under pheeds, channels and hashtags. In terms of what you are allowed to share, you can attach pictures, music and videos to any of your pheeds.

Al in all, the Android app does justice to the service and provides a complete Pheed experience right from your smartphone. Pheed can be downloaded for free from Google Play Store.

Download Pheed

Read Popular Twitter & Tumblr Mashup Pheed Comes To Android by Waqas Ahmed on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

Vobok offers three sign up options, including Facebook, Twitter and email. The welcome screen also lets users associate a profile picture with their new account. One signed in, Vobok displays a list of all of your contacts who are already on the service, while letting you send an invitation to anyone who is not using the app yet. Apart from personal contacts, people who have chosen to keep their Vobok profile public can be followed by anyone as well. These friends and followed users help populate the ‘Feed’ section of the app.

The Vobok feeds display a list of all the recordings posted by your contacts. These recordings can be played in-line without leaving the feed. The title of a post, along with its associated image (if any), also show up. Swipe across a recording if you want to re-post, add it to your favorites, or post a clip of your own in reply. The reply option only works for posts from people who follow you as well.

To create a Vobok recording of your own, hit the ‘Broadcast’ button from the bottom bar. To help keep things organized, you are strongly advised to give your posts a title. Attaching an image with the recording can also looks pretty good as the post’s cover. Thanks to the two button at the bottom of the recording area, users can choose to publish their posts to other social networks as well as on Vobok. To view your past posts, head to the ‘Profile’ section of the app, where you can also get an overview of your followers and people you are following.

Vobok has been around for a few months but before its latest update, the invitation method wasn’t exactly convenient. Now, however, this free app is truly uncomplicated, letting users focus on creating recordings rather than inviting friends.

Download Vobok For iOS

Download Vobok For Android

Read Vobok For iOS & Android Is Like Twitter For Short Voice Recordings by Hamza Khalid on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

The ability to upload your own eBooks to the Play Books makes for a killer feature, as this means you longer need to worry about carrying your entire eBook collection with yourself all the time, and then doing manual labor to keep things synced across multiple devices.

Uploading books is great and all, but what really makes the difference is the second feature i.e. how you can then read these books on your Android smartphone/tablet, iPhone, iPad or desktop/laptop PC through the Play Books website and keep things synced. Apart from just keeping your eBook library itself in sync, the service ensures that the last page you read before dozing off last night, your personal bookmarks, any notes you added – everything is saved in the cloud, and can be accessed from any of the aforementioned devices, providing a seamless reading experience no matter where you open your eBooks to read them.

You have two options for uploading your personal collection of eBooks. You can either upload them manually, or have Play Books go through your Google Drive folder to look for compatible files and transfer them to Play Books. Both options are available on the Play Books Upload page after you sign in (shown above).

Speaking of signing in, you must be living in the US – or have some way of fooling Google into thinking you are in the US by using VPNs or proxy services – to be able to access the service and upload your books to it. This is one area where Play Books still lags far behind iBooks, Amazon Books and many other competing services.

Once you have uploaded your favorite books, you can download these books to your mobile device in the Play Books app for Android and iOS (linked below) for reading them on the go.

Now, whenever you read a chapter of Dune, add a note in 1984, or bookmark a page in The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy on your way to work, it will be there on Play Books across all your devices.

Download Play Books For Android

Download Play Books For iOS

Read How To Upload EPUBs & PDFs To Google Play Books And Read On Web, iOS & Android by Awais Imran on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

The Google I/O keynote yesterday brought a lot of important announcements, but the revamped Hangouts service seems to have managed to cause the most excitement among them all so far, probably because it has already been rolled out for users all over the world. The iOS app is available in the App Store, while  lot of Android users have managed to get their hands on the Hangouts update for their Google Talk app as well. Google already offered its Google Talk (also called GTalk, Google Chat and Gmail Chat) already enjoyed integration with Google+ and Gmail but compared to the Hangouts feature of Google+, it wasn’t too heavy on features. Some of you might have wondered why the plain old chat can’t become as cool as its Google+ variant. Even if you have never thought of that possibility, Google seems to have been thinking along those lines. The new Hangouts can be considered a consolidation of Google Talk and Google+ Hangouts that works on Android, iOS, Google+ and Chrome. The service offers everything from video calling to group chat, and even a huge collection of emoticons.

Hangouts For Chrome

The new Hangouts extension is available in the Chrome Web Store and once installed, it makes sure you stay in touch with your friends even when Chrome is closed. If you choose to stay logged in permanently, the extension becomes active as soon as your computer is turned on like a system tray app (with an icon there too), ensuring not a single message is ever missed.

The first thing you have to do after installing Hangouts for Chrome is to sign in to your Google account. Upon doing that, all your Google contacts show up in the main screen’s list. To begin a new chat session (or Hangout), simply begin typing a contact’s name or ID in the field at the top of the window. You can chat with a single person, or start a group hangout. The chat window itself is pretty simple, and has two main views. The buttons at the top of the screen can be used to switch between text chat and video calling. During a video call, you can invite more people to join your hangout, control the call’s volume and switch cameras. If you are simply sending text messages, you can share photos or send any of the 850 available emoticons. From the extension’s settings menu, you can configure its chat windows to always stay on top  of all other windows.

The New Google+ Hangouts

Google+ has received a major overhaul today, and the new Hangouts improvements apply here as well. No matter where you are in Google+, initiating a hangout is never difficult. Simply click the green icon in the top-right corner and choose your ‘Hangout Party’. The chat windows aren’t too different from the ones that show up in Hangouts for Chrome, so basically it’s this Google+ version that has been used as a model for the other apps of the service, which makes sense since Hangouts launched as a Google+ feature in the first place.

Hangouts For iOS

Since there has never been an official Google Talk client for iOS, it is pretty big news that Hangouts has been released for iPhone and iPad as well. Although Hangouts were available as part of the Google+ app, having a standalone client that even lets you chat with your GTalk contacts has got to be welcomed by many. Not only does the iOS app let you stay in touch with your friends, but you can now swap video calls with any number of your friends as well. Group hangouts allow up to ten participants, which is more than enough for most scenarios.

Using the app isn’t too difficult, as Google has refrained from making things overly complicated. To begin a hangout, tap the ‘+’ icon from the top bar and begin choosing your correspondents. All ongoing sessions have entries of their own on the app’s main screen. These threads can be archived simply with a leftwards swipe. Your hangout archives can be accessed by tapping the gear icon located in the top bar. From the same settings screen, Hangouts users get to snooze notifications and manage received requests or blocked profiles.

Much like the Chrome and G+ versions of the service, the chat window has video and text modes. Video controls are located in the bottom bar, while you can view a thread’s options by tapping the contact icon at the top of the screen. During text chats, it is possible to share photos straight from your iPhone’s camera, or by attaching the ones that are already in your camera roll. For every thread, you can add more people, toggle notifications, or go off the record. Lastly, you can block contacts and delete or archive conversations.

Hangouts For Android

For Android, Hangouts has been rolled out as an update for the stock Talk app, and is gradually rolling out to all Android devices running 2.2 Froyo or later. The app is sure to be visible for everyone in the Google Play Store but if can’t seem to install it from there yet (it may tell you that you have the app already installed, basically referring to Google Talk), you have to wait for a while longer till you get the update notification in Play Store on your device.

There are some UI differences between the Android and iOS versions of Hangouts. On Android, the app’s settings are accessible right on the main screen, and you don’t have to go to a separate section for them. Rather than having to use the back button to go to the conversations view, users can simply swipe between the most recent chat window and the list of all active threads. Unlike the iOS app, Hangouts for Android has an emoticon button of its own, which lets you open the categorized collection of smileys from Google.

The biggest criticism that Hangouts has been facing until now is that there is no way of changing your availability status on it. So, if you like staying ‘Invisible’ until initiating a chat session, Hangouts is probably going to be a little disappointing. Also, there was a lot of speculation about Google integrating SMS support into the service, making it truly ubiquitous for all communication, but that hasn’t happened. Lastly, the chat section in Gmail still shows the old interface and hasn’t been updated to Hangouts yet, which is a significant omission since many of us use Google’s chat service in Gmail.

The Android and iOS apps are a little buggy for now, but we are sure the service will have Google’s constant attention so that it can keep getting better. You can start using the new Hangouts without downloading anything by heading to Google+, or grab them for Chrome, iOS or Android from the links provided below.

Download Hangouts For Chrome

Download Hangouts For Android

Download Hangouts For iOS

Read Hands-On With Google Hangouts Unified, Cross-Platform IM & Video Chat by Hamza Khalid on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter