Hangouts 4.0 leaks again, but you can start conversations from Android Wear right now

We saw leaked screenshots of both the upcoming Hangouts Android app and its Android Wear counterpart, and now the app has leaked again (via Phandroid). Everything looks basically the same, and there’s not much new to see in this leak. And while Phandroid seems to claim that their version of the app is somehow special, the currently-available build of Hangouts now lets users send messages from Android Wear…

Hangouts 4.0 has been long-drooled-over for months, as the current build of Hangouts is just… not that great. iOS has almost always had a better Hangouts app than Android, and Google’s stock Messenger app for sending SMS messages has been consistently updated since its release to be better and better. Hangouts, on the other hand, has seemingly been ignored (even though it’s just as if not more often used by most).

But that’s about to change. The upcoming release of Hangouts looks almost identical to iOS app, but as was previous noted, it’s pretty buggy. The most recent leak is also buggy still, which doesn’t bode well for those of us hoping that the app will be released soon. Almost every #UpdateWednesday has seen the Android community begging for Hangouts, and it has still yet to land. Looks like the team is still squashing bugs.

Perhaps the most interesting thing we’ve learned today, though, is that Phandroid‘s app is not the reason that Hangouts is working on Android Wear. Google recently added WhatsApp, Viber, and other apps to be compatible with “OK, Google,” and it looks like Hangouts went unmentioned. You don’t need a fancy leaked build of Hangouts 4.0 to use this feature — apparently, it’s working right now assuming you have the latest version of the app available in the Play Store.

It’s only a matter of time before Hangouts finally gets updated, but until then, feel free to play around with the almost-kind-of Android Wear support.