How distinguish hangout from google talk app?

Question

From my app I want to run Hangouts and from that app users can create video calls.
But on some target devices users have native Google Talk app (not updated to Hangouts).

The problem is: Google Talk and Hangouts - this is the same apps with the identical package name com.google.android.talk, and I don't know how distinguish them.

My logic: when I found package on device - I just run app. If no - open market page with this app.

Maybe someone knows, how distinguish hangout from google talk app?

My code:

public void startApplication(String packageName){
        try
        {
            Intent intent = new Intent("android.intent.action.MAIN");
            intent.addCategory("android.intent.category.LAUNCHER");
            intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NO_ANIMATION);
            List<ResolveInfo> resolveInfoList = getPackageManager().queryIntentActivities(intent, 0);
            for(ResolveInfo info : resolveInfoList)
                if(info.activityInfo.packageName.equalsIgnoreCase(packageName))
                {
                    launchComponent(info.activityInfo.packageName, info.activityInfo.name);
                    return;
                }
            showInMarket(packageName);
        }
        catch (Exception e)
        {
            showInMarket(packageName);
        }
    }
private void launchComponent(String packageName, String name){
        Intent intent = new Intent("android.intent.action.MAIN");
        intent.addCategory("android.intent.category.LAUNCHER");
        intent.setComponent(new ComponentName(packageName, name));
        intent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
        startActivity(intent);
    }
    private void showInMarket(String packageName){
        Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, Uri.parse("market://details?id=" + packageName));
        intent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
        startActivity(intent);
    }

UPD

Now I have only one idea: to check if the publicSourceDir is /system/app/Talk.apk - if "yes" - we have preset "Google Talk" app - but I don't think this is good solution.
What do you thing about it?

String publicSourceDir = getPackageManager()
                            .getPackageInfo(info.activityInfo.packageName, 0).applicationInfo.publicSourceDir;
if(!publicSourceDir.toLowerCase().endsWith(GOOGLE_HANGOUT_SYSTEM_APK.toLowerCase())){
                      ......
                    }

Answer 1

Checking for installation path stopped working when Google started shipping devices with hangouts installed into the ROM part. I guess the original Nexus 5 ROM includes the new hangouts app in the ROM. Further updates will be installed in user space.

Anyway, checking for permission android.permission.SEND_SMS should do the trick. I don't have any device with good old Google Talk to test. But I guess it does not have this permission.

private boolean isHangoutsInstalled(final Context context) {
    PackageManager pm = context.getPackageManager();
    assert pm != null;

    // check for bable aka hangouts app 
    try {
        if (pm.getApplicationInfo("com.google.android.apps.babel", 0) != null) {
            return true;
        }
    } catch (PackageManager.NameNotFoundException e) {
        Log.e(TAG, "babel not found, check for talk app");
    }

    // check for talk app or updated talk app now known as hangouts
    try {
        if (pm.getApplicationInfo("com.google.android.talk", 0) == null) {
            // no talk, no update
            return false;
        }
    } catch (PackageManager.NameNotFoundException e) {
        Log.e(TAG, "talk app not found");
        // no talk, no update
        return false;
    }

    // talk app found
    // check for talk update
    return PackageManager.PERMISSION_GRANTED == pm
            .checkPermission("android.permission.SEND_SMS",
                             "com.google.android.talk");
}

I'm not sure with the first part checking for com.google.android.apps.babel package.
The decoded AndroidManifest.xml of my N4's hangouts app shows a packageName="com.google.android.apps.babel". But the PackageManager throws a NameNotFoundException.
Maybe you can just drop that first part completely.

Answer 2

You should use app version, Hangouts is 2.0 and gtalk in 2.1.33 seems to be the last one.

Take a look at: https://stackoverflow.com/a/6593822/955143

But you wanna use something like

PackageInfo pInfo = getPackageManager().getPackageInfo(getPackageName(), 0);
version = pInfo.versionName;

Since Gtalk will not be upgraded even more, you can relay in this method to identify it, another approach could be always send your user to the market if their hangouts app isn't the last one (or a few versions).

The downside is that you will need to keep an eye in hangout updates to adapt your code to react accordingly.