In mid-2013, Google officially introduced us to Hangouts, its new messaging app that was meant to replace Google Talk. Google has improved upon Hangouts quite a bit since, adding SMS support and merged conversations, but I’m sure many folks would agree that the app could still use a bit more polish. The good news is that Google appears to be getting ready to do some spit shining.
Florian Kiersch has posted several images of what he says is “Ultra Violet,” the codename for a much-improved Google Hangouts offering. Ultra Violet is expected to offer a refreshed design elements as well as a new Chrome extension.
Images show that this extension will live on a user’s desktop and can be freely moved around. It’ll be home to several Chat Heads-style icons that’ll represent a user’s conversation. Once a chat is selected, the user will be shown a chat window that’s not terribly dissimilar from the one found in the current edition of Hangouts.
Right now it’s said that Ultra Violet is undergoing testing, and there’s no word on when it might be rolled out to the public or if it’ll bring any of its new features to Android. Anyone that uses Hangouts on the desktop ought to be pretty excited for this update, though, as it looks to be a pretty solid improvement over the Hangouts extension that we know and tolerate.
