[Spoom]

Behind the polish on the screen is the power under the hood. Take the Phone app, which for most people hasn’t really changed since the days of flip phones. Now, we’re making calling easier than ever, by helping you search across your contacts, nearby places, or even Google Apps accounts (like your company’s directory), directly from within the app.

Is that marketing speak for, "We're moving the Phone app into Google Play Services"?

[kcorbitt]

Some background on how this fits into a wider trend: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-...

And the discussion, much of which involves explaining why this tendency is maybe not as sinister as the Ars article implies: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6582494

[e12e]

I'm more concerned about the integration of hangouts with sms and mms -- I read that as all other voip/video calls and messaging services (xmpp) will be further pushed into the cold.