Overhauled Hangouts app for Android shown off in Android L screenshots

Posted by on Hangouts
Yesterday, Google announced at its I/O developer conference a developer preview of the upcoming Android "L" release. What does this have to do with Google+? Well, a visually refreshed version of Hangouts may be bundled in.

Material Design is a new design standard which is set to deliver a fresh and dynamic UI that scales from tiny screens found on Android Wear watches, to phones, tablets, laptops and Android TVs, you get the gist. This means from now and until the launch of the Android L release, you'll be seeing visual overhauls of Google apps (Google+ for Android was the first to debut the new look) across the board on both Android and the web.
New to the left - Old on the right
As you can see in the screenshots above, Hangouts has adopted a more subdued colour palette, rounded profile photos and the new styling which matches the Material Design standard. No new features can be spotted unfortunately, but that doesn't mean there won't be treats when this new version of Hangouts is announced and rolling out.

So when can we get our hands on it?

Phone Arena doesn't state where it got these screenshots but they do appear to be legit. I'm hoping that it will come packaged with the rest of the goodies that form the developer preview of "L" later today. As for it landing on the Play Store, we're hoping sooner rather than later and hey, Google+ turns 3 on the 29th...

Based on those 2 screenshots of the upcoming Hangouts release, what are your thoughts? Love or hate the new look?

Source: Phone Arena