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Google Hangouts Chrome app updated w/ redesigned interface, OS X support

Screen Shot 2015-05-21 at 8.29.15 PMGoogle today updated its Hangouts Chrome app with an entirely new interface. Perhaps more notably than that, the app has support for Mac OS X users in addition to the trio of Windows, Linux, and Chrome OS. The UI has been refreshed to be more similar to the Android version of the app, a trend that has been increasingly common for Google services over the past few months.

The update was announced in a post on Google+. In the post, Googler Mayur Kamat warned that users on Windows, Chrome OS, and Linux should disable transparent mode under settings in order to see all of the new changes.

Google’s Chrome Hangouts app has long been criticized for being sub par in terms of functionality and design. In my brief usage so far, however, this version appears to be significantly better than previous iterations. It’s nice to see Google making its user interface designs more similar across web and Android clients. Earlier this month, Google updated the Play Music design on the web to be more familiar to users of the Android client.

Today’s refreshed Hangouts interface is rolling out to users now, but could take a little while to hit everyone, so be patient.

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