Google Hangouts for Android rumored to drop text messaging feature

Google may be poised to remove SMS and MMS functionality from Android’s Hangouts messaging app, according to a report in Phandroid (via Android Police). No reason was given for the alleged move, though this feature has had its share of growing pains since its initial inclusion in late 2013.

Currently Android users can choose to route their text and multimedia messages to either the stock messaging app — known as Messenger — or adopt a more unified inbox approach by pushing them into Hangouts, alongside their instant messages. The loss of this functionality, if true, will surely rankle users who’ve become accustomed to this convenience.

However, the report does note that, even with carrier texts gone, the change should not affect SMS messages received through Google Voice (nor Project Fi, which relies on the Voice-Hangouts integration).

Phandroid claims that Google employees are currently testing the SMS-less build internally, but that it’s not clear when it will start rolling out to the public.