XMPP features now missing from GTalk (aka Hangout Chat)
I posted a snarky Twitter message about not wanting to spam the people following me with the features I'm now missing from GTalk, but I now really want to track them so...
Features that are now missing
- Outside IM clients can no longer send messages to Google+ (aka GTalk, aka GMail) users
- Outside IM clients can no longer receive messages from Google+
- Presence updates to/from outside networks not allowed
- Invisible status is missing
- Unable to block other Google+ users from seeing my status
- Contacts are now in whatever order some silly person at Google thinks is accurate/friendly/useful instead of the at-least-it's consistent alphabetical order
- The only way to remove someone from the active Contacts list is to ... wait for it... block them!
ok, so it's not the 15 that I said on Twitter but it's still damn annoying
EDIT: ok, so I may have been a bit harsh and in a really cranky mood when writing the above - here is a post from the G+ conversation where some of the community members correct me ;)
Buried in a conversation over on this post is some comments from +Ben Eidelson about how XMPP support is still in the plans for Hangouts, just either not implemented or buggy.
So it could be that I'm just reacting poorly to some really bad coding and/or product management - don't get me wrong, i'm still irked.
I just may be restructuring and changing my reaction over the next couple of updates.
Thanks to +Fernando Miguel for pointing that out.
Sources:
- +Ben Eidelson May 15, 2013
- +Daniel Rose currently those settings affect who causes invites to you, not who shows up for you to send messages to. Once you start using Hangouts for a few days the list should re-order based on who you are contacting most often.
- +Thomas Heinen Thanks for your report of the issue. Hangouts supports basic interop with XMPP, so you can-for the time being-continue to use 3rd party clients. It does not work the same way as Talk, and so I believe the issue you're having with the XMPP bridge will not resolve in Hangouts.