http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/0...ses-a-better-organized-contact-list-and-more/
Looks like the new Hangouts update is supposed to address some of the major gripes users had with the app, and that is online offline statuses.
I've done some investigation in the past 30 minutes and I can say that it's not a complete solution.
1) You still don't have idle statuses, so everyone is just marked as available.
2) What does available mean? That you have Hangouts installed? That's likely a LARGE population on Android unless they refused to upgrade or rolled back. So in essence, before they were statusless because Google argued everyone with Hangouts is technically online. Now they just slap a green dot on them, which is meaningless now.
3) It seems they only tag available green dots onto your contacts that you hangout with. For the rest of the contacts, they get no status. I figured that's highly unlikely that they're actually all offline so I tested by signing into Gtalk using another client. A few friends are "Yellow" on Gtalk, but "offline" when I check on GMail. When I check on Hangouts, they're also just gray. What about the other "Green" contacts in Gtalk? There's a bunch that's not on "People you Hangout with" list like the "Other Contacts," which is probably what Google feels that you don't talk to as often. They're ALL gray and are not marked with an available dot. However, they are clearly online by checking: Hangouts from GMail, and checking Gtalk.
Looks like the new Hangouts update is supposed to address some of the major gripes users had with the app, and that is online offline statuses.
I've done some investigation in the past 30 minutes and I can say that it's not a complete solution.
1) You still don't have idle statuses, so everyone is just marked as available.
2) What does available mean? That you have Hangouts installed? That's likely a LARGE population on Android unless they refused to upgrade or rolled back. So in essence, before they were statusless because Google argued everyone with Hangouts is technically online. Now they just slap a green dot on them, which is meaningless now.
3) It seems they only tag available green dots onto your contacts that you hangout with. For the rest of the contacts, they get no status. I figured that's highly unlikely that they're actually all offline so I tested by signing into Gtalk using another client. A few friends are "Yellow" on Gtalk, but "offline" when I check on GMail. When I check on Hangouts, they're also just gray. What about the other "Green" contacts in Gtalk? There's a bunch that's not on "People you Hangout with" list like the "Other Contacts," which is probably what Google feels that you don't talk to as often. They're ALL gray and are not marked with an available dot. However, they are clearly online by checking: Hangouts from GMail, and checking Gtalk.
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