Hangouts — Google’s answer to iMessage, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger — has been greatly ignored by the company. While nearly all of Google’s apps have been updated to follow the Material Design guidelines, the Hangouts app for Android is still stuck in a Holo-Material Design world era.

Google did not even talk about the service at the opening keynote of I/O this year, which clearly shows how important the company has in the product.

Nonetheless, it looks like Google is actually working on a major update for Hangouts that will fix most of the issues plaguing the app currently. The upcoming v4.0 update to the app will give it a full Material Design makeover and add a FAB (Floating Action Bar). The FAB will allow users to quickly start a new conversation, group message, video call or send a message to your frequently messaged contact.

The aesthetics of the app have also been updated to make it less in your face type. For example, the notification that any conversation is muted, is now subtly displayed via a snackbar. Previously, Hangouts warned users that a conversation was muted through a big red banner inside the conversation window at the top.

Despite getting such a major visual overhaul, it looks like the upcoming version of Hangouts will not be optimised for Android tablets, which is a bummer. In fact, at least on the build being tested by Android Police, the app does away with the two-pane layout present in the existing app.

From a features point, the update will add the ability to change the status message in Hangouts right from the app itself. From the preview given by the folks over at Android Police, it looks like this is the only major change from a features viewpoint that Hangouts v4.0 will bring.

It is unclear when Google plans on rolling out Hangouts v4.0 to the Google Play Store. Looking at how sorely the app needs an update though, one can only hope that the update is released sooner than later.