Hangouts/Babel doesn’t include SMS support (yet?), Android 4.3 also mentioned in rumor update

A report detailing Google’s rumored Babel messaging app that would be launched in the near future has been updated to include more information about the service, but also about other Google products, Android 4.3-included.

The same The Verge forum poster that revealed yesterday that Babel will in fact be called Hangout, revealing some of its features, has updated that post with more information.

After previously revealing that the app would offer a unified messaging solution to Android users, feature an app icon “similar to the messenger icon” and offer a Holo UI, the tipster returned with more information.

According to him, Babel will be called Hangouts (as in plural; as in Google+ Hangouts) not Hangout as previously reported. Not that the final name of the app will be that important, will it?

What’s more interesting is that Hangouts apparently lacks SMS/MMS sync, or at least the feature is “not there on the app that’s being dogfooded.” Moreover, the same Ryan Socio suggested that the final version may lack SMS support at first, when answering to a comment on his updated news:

The fact that it’s about 10 days away from launch doesn’t make the situation feel anymore promising.

Socio also added that Google Now would get “location-based reminders” and Gmail’s would be “Holofied” in a “UI overhaul.”

In addition to dishing out all these details on future products, Socio briefly mentioned Android 4.3 in his updated post, basically confirming this particular Android version that has been already spotted in server logs, and may be already the object of meetings between certain companies involved with Android:

I may not be able to get much info about 4.3, my sources are not taking part in the internal beta program. 

While he isn’t apparently in the loop with Android 4.3 news, hardware information may be available next week. In the past, he apparently provided accurate information about Google’s latest hardware announcements (LG Nexus 4, Nexus 7 and Nexus 10) so he could very well be right about Google’s plans for Google I/O 2013.

That said, we’ll remind you that we don’t have anything official from Google at this time on either Hangouts/Hangout/Babel, Google Now, Gmail or Android 4.3, so we’ll have to take everything with a grain of salt until things become clearer. Google I/O is just 10 days away, an event that we’ll thoroughly cover for you.