Remember that time you were super jazzed about Hangouts 4.0, and when it finally came out, it wasn’t that great? How about when v5.0 began its rollout, and it was basically the same thing, but with working animated GIFs? Version 5.1 is now making its way out into the world, but if you weren’t happy with the previous releases, you’re probably not going to be too thrilled with this one. It looks like a relatively light bug fix update, and nothing more.
It’s probably no coincidence that a v5.1 update was also just released on the iOS App Store with a very sparse changelog. There’s no certainty that the two updates would have the same changelogs, it’s a fairly good indicator that there aren’t going to be any new features on the Android side. The only things mentioned are updates to the send button and improvements to the interface. Neither of these things seem to have a visual impact, nor do they noticeably affect performance or function.
What’s New in Version 5.1.0
Bug fixes and performance improvements
- Updates to send button.
- User interface and accessibility improvements.
I’ve done a teardown and can confirm that very few changes have been made, and certainly nothing that looks interesting. Nevertheless, we’re still looking for changes, so keep your eyes open for anything different in this release. With luck, maybe this update has at least fixed the bug that prevented new messages from going into the chat window and the occasional lag spikes reported by some users.
Download
The APK is signed by Google and upgrades your existing app. The cryptographic signature guarantees that the file is safe to install and was not tampered with in any way. Rather than wait for Google to push this download to your devices, which can take days, download and install it just like any other APK.
File Name: com.google.android.talk_5.1.105976615-22662802_minAPI21(armeabi-v7a)(nodpi).apk
Version: 5.1.105976615 (22662802)