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Google announced this week that Hangouts would be closed after

Jan. 3, 2017 by Paul Fletcher

Google announced this week that Hangouts would be closed after its "long-term plan" is completed. The company also said that "all new and existing Hangouts services will remain available and available for download for free when the Hangouts team reaches a consensus of two-thirds of the company's active Hangouts users."

The announcement comes on the heels of a new announcement by the company that Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet will soon be supported by "a new set of services that will be available as part of Google's upcoming Hangouts platform."

Google will also be launching Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet for Android phones, as well as for Android-based devices, the company says. In a Google blog post at the time, Google announced that it will be launching Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet for Android phones in September 2018, and a "new set of services that will be available as part of Google's upcoming Hangouts platform," which will include new Hangouts apps and services for Android devices. A Google spokeswoman confirmed that Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet will be available in various languages, including English, French, German, Korean and Spanish.

There are still no official terms of this partnership, and Google didn't say how much Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet will cost. However, both of the Hangouts apps already offer both a Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet interface, and Hangouts Chat is being offered through Google Play. Google said that it will continue to provide Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet with an "enhanced app store and a suite of new features," while Hangouts Meet is being offered through Google Play. It will also be available as a standalone app on mobile devices. Google said that Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet are still in "beta."

Google announced its new and updated Hangouts Platforms, an open source, "modern messaging API that supports native mobile and web-based apps." Google will continue to support Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet with its new Android-based Hangouts service for Android devices, and also will support Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet for mobile devices, as well as for Android-based devices. The company also stated that it will continue to provide Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet with an "enhanced app store," while Hangouts Meet is being offered through Google Play.

A previous version of this post stated that the mobile Hangouts app store is being discontinued, but that Google is now offering a new mobile app store for Hang