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| Google combines Meet and Duo into one app |
Google has announced the merging of Duo and Meet apps into a single platform, so soon it will be just Google Meet, and the search giant hopes it will be the one app users need for just about everything in their lives.
By combining the two, Google hopes to solve some of the issues that hamper modern communication tools. It's important to understand how people choose what tools they use, for what purposes and under what circumstances, said Javier Soltero, head of Google Workspace.
There are dozens of different chat apps, each with its own set of rules and contact lists, some for businesses and some for individuals.
The company hopes to use Gmail addresses and phone numbers to collect them. “It’s important to be able to access that way rather than having to manage all these different identities and deal with the implications,” Soltero said.
Soltero has spent most of his time at Google championing this idea of accessibility. This prompted the company to integrate Meet and Chat with many of its other services.
Over the past two years, Meet has grown into a powerful platform for group meetings and conversations. Although Duo still exists as a messaging app. Google pledges to integrate all Duo functionality into Meet from now on.
Duo, an easy way to make one-to-one video calls from Google in 2016, does many useful things that Meet doesn't.
With Duo, you can call someone directly, including their phone number, rather than relying on sending a link or clicking the Meet button in a Google Calendar invite.
Google's new app called Google Meet
Since the two services were combined into one, the company uses the Duo mobile app by default. The app will soon receive an update to bring in Meet functionality.
Later this year, the Duo branding will be changed to Google Meet. The current Meet app is called Meet Original and will be discontinued at a later date.
Even under the new name, Duo will retain all the existing video calling features. New features include customizable virtual background images in calls and meetings, meeting scheduling, meeting chat, real-time content sharing, real-time annotations, video calling with up to 100 participants, improved audio and video experience with noise reduction, and collaboration. With another Google-Integration tool. Like Gmail, Calendar, Assistant, and Messages.
"Duo is very mature, especially in emerging markets with few or less stable internet connections," said Dave Citron, product manager for Google Video products.
But it is different on the web because Meet is the most advanced web platform. They form the basis of the new systems on board.
This is yet another attempt by Google to unify some of its disparate services and make its suite of services more visible and cohesive.
With the growth of Meet during the pandemic, it has become the obvious place for companies to focus on the audio and video business. The company also wants the Meet branding to mean more than just meetings.
The company is said to have integrated Meet into many of its services to become a competitor to WhatsApp and FaceTime.