Google is shutting down Hangouts as reported by a report from 9to5Google citing its source. The report claims that this may happen in 2020. Well, it’s not surprising at all since the development on the app was ceased more than a year ago. So, it was already known that the shut down will happen soon. But, if the report is to be believed, Google is taking a good one year to finally shut down the service.

However, Google’s Scott Johnston came in to clarify some of the things of this report. He called it a pretty shoddy reporting and said the source is “severely misinformed.” ​

https://t.co/QgYfj03ADn

Hey @hallstephenj, I run Hangouts and this is pretty shoddy reporting. No decisions made about when Hangouts will be shut down. Hangouts users will be upgraded to Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet. Your source is severely misinformed. You can do better.

— Scott Johnston (@happyinwater) December 1, 2018

He further said, the reporting leaves the “reader to jump to dramatic conclusions, because it’s only half the store.” However, he did say,

So while that will result in the eventual shut down of Hangouts classic (as we now call it), it doesn't imply we are ending support for the use case supported by the product: messaging and meetings.

There are a series of tweets made by him and you can read them on his tweet thread.

He rather said that “Hangouts users will be upgraded to Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet.” So how Google will migrate its users to these two new services is yet to be known.

Furthermore, a Google spokesperson issued an official statement stating the company is “fully committed to supporting classic Hangouts users.” No timeline for the transition was provided today, though.