[on_and_off]

Google really did drop the ball on messaging. Hangouts was supposed to progressively regroup all these messaging capabilities in one service, but the SMS integration alone has been so bad that Google rolled out a separate SMS app after deleting it in the first place (the new version is an improved Material revamp, but it still serves the same purpose). There is probably a very interesting insider story behind this cock-up. In the mean-time, I hope that Google will learn from these attempts and improve Hangouts in meaningful ways. Sundar Pinchai has already alluded to the fact that Hangouts and Photos are going to be treated as entirely different teams/services than Google+, which is probably a good start.