Don’t get Google Chat confused with Google Messages. Chat is an online-based messaging app that has an interface similar to Gmail. Instead of handling your text messages, you’re able to send one-on-one messages to one another via Wi-Fi and data.
Now, Google Chat will bring back the idle indicator
Google posted a blog post detailing that it wants to bring back the orange idle indicator. If you’re going to message someone, you’ll see a small status indicator to let you know if they’re available for chatting. If a person is on the platform, but they haven’t been active for a bit, you’ll see an orange indicator to let you know that they’re idle. This will let you know that, if you send them a message, there’s a chance that they won’t respond right away. This is a feature that Google had a while back, but it took it away. The feature should be fully rolled out by now, so you should be able to see it. If you don’t see it, you’ll need to make sure you’re on the latest version of the app. To do that, you can tap and hold on the Google Chat app and press the App Info button (the “!” in the circle). After that, go to App Details and that will take you to the Google Play Store page. There, you should see the green update button. If you don’t, then you might just need to wait a bit for the version to hit your device. You shouldn’t have to wait for too long, as this is just a minor update to the app. The update should be on its way.
