Google Trusted Contacts Officially Pulled From App Stores

Google has officially pulled the plug on its Trusted Contacts app. First introduced in 2016, the app offered users a way to share their device activity status and location with selected contacts. It has now disappeared from both Google Play store and the Apple's App Store. The tech giant will also stop support for the app starting December 1 this year. The move follows a series of measures that Google has taken recently to optimise its products and services. Trusted Contacts follows in the footsteps of Google's two other location sharing apps — Google Latitude and Google+ Location Sharing — that were scrapped earlier.

Trusted Contacts was first inducted exclusively to Play Store for Android users. A year and some upgrades later, it was made available for iOS users via the App Store. By then, it was integrated with Google Maps and offered useful features like allowing a trusted contact to be added via email address. But it slowly lost its sheen.

For those who have the Trusted Contacts app installed still, Google will end support to it after December 1. The website has put up a notice that announces the date. Google is prompting the users to use location sharing feature, that now also includes live location — a functionality of trusted contacts — on Google Maps instead. Users who wish to download a list of their trusted contacts also have till December 1 to do it from the website.

In a similar move, Google also plans to kill Hangouts. It recently announced that it will be transitioning users from Hangouts to Google Chat that is now a part of the re-branded Google Workspace (previously G Suite) sometime next year. Hangout users will be prompted to use Meet (also a part of Google Workspace) for video calls starting November. The support for Hangouts will officially ends next year.

In 2020, will WhatsApp get the killer feature that every Indian is waiting for? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.