Google this week launched a new version of its free Hangouts messaging app for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch, bringing it up to version 2.0.

"The app has a brand new look and feel, is super easy to navigate, and includes a bunch of performance improvements," Google software engineer Frank Petterson wrote in a Google+ post Thursday.

You can, of course, still swap messages, photos, and videos as well as make free voice and video calls to a group of people or just one friend. But the app is now fully optimized for Apple's iOS 7 and the iPad, allowing for "big, beautiful video calls" and picture-in-picture video calling with a two-pane conversation view that is perfect for the tablet's larger screen, Petterson said.

There's also a new video message feature, which lets you record and send videos up to 10 seconds long to everyone in the conversation. When you're ready to take the conversation offline and hang out in real life, you can send a map of your current location with just a few taps.

Perhaps most exciting, the app now has fun animated stickers to help you express your mood and share exactly how you're feeling without words. "Think of them as emoji, but even more awesome," Petterson wrote.

The Hangouts app lets you make group video calls with up to 10 people, and free phones calls to numbers in the U.S. and Canada. The new version of Google Hangouts for iOS is available for download in the App Store now.

For more, see PCMag's full review of Hangouts (for iPhone).

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