Android 6.0 Marshmallow was unveiled in 2015 and back then, one of the best features it came in with was Direct Share. As it seems, Google Hangouts is taking a page from its sibling by going the Direct Share way.
This is a surprising move from Google given that the OS has been here for over half a year and in fact, it is the company that develops it. At the moment, Android N is being prepped and besides other developers, Google developers are also reworking their internal apps to fit with the ethos of the upcoming OS. On the contrary, Google has taken its time to implement a feature that has been here for quite some time now.
But it is never late until it’s over and apparently, Google wasn’t done just yet. Last week, the company updated its Google Hangouts app with this feature that eliminates the hassle of having to search for a contact from the entire list in order to share a quick note.
Google Hangouts 10 ready for download
The updated version of Google Hangouts is v10 and as at the time of this writing, it can be downloaded for free, but as an APK file. This time-saving productivity feature ensures that your frequently used contacts or the recent persons you contacted on Hangouts appear in a share menu.
When you want to share an item, this menu will show up, allowing you to pick a name and proceed with sharing the content rather than have to go all the way into the contacts list to search for the same contact. However, if the name does not appear on the share menu, you will still have to go the long way.
Of course, this is hardly a huge improvement, but it will be appreciated by power users who frequently use Google Hangouts to carry out different tasks as it saves lots of time.
The free Google Hangouts v10 APK can be downloaded from the official APKMirror website. However, keep in mind that this is a trial version and as such, you might encounter buggy performances with the app on your phone. Alternatively, you can sit back and wait for the stable version to be rolled out, which shouldn’t take long from now.
As for iOS users, the same Hangouts v10 is available for download via the App Store. However, there is no mention of the Direct Share feature in this update.