Google is turning Meet and Duo into a one voice and video calling application

Google announced plans to merge the company's applications Meet and Duo into a single voice and video calling application.

The company plans to keep the Google Meet name and the Google Duo application. The application will receive Google Meet features, and the classic Google Meet application will be retired in the process. Google explains that it made the decision to help "people stay connected, and to adapt to evolving user needs".

Back in 2016, I wrote about a built-retire cycle at Google. Back then, the prime example was Google+, but I mentioned the messaging applications Hangouts, Duo and Allo as well. Google shut down Allow in 2018, after two years in which it has been available. Google planned to move users to Messages, and announced that it would bring features of Allo to Messages.

In 2019, Google announced plans to retire Hangouts, a popular messaging service, in favor of Chat and Meet.

Google is coming full circle with the June 2022 announcement. It all started with the splitting of Hangouts into the business product Meet, and the two consumer products Allo and Duo. Allo was shut down first, and now Google is merging the two remaining products into a single product again.

In the near future, Google customers will use one service, Google Meet, with the technology of Google Duo and features of Google Meet, as the core video and voice calling application. Google Duo functionality is not removed from the application, meaning that Google customers may continue to use the app to "make video calls to friends and fmaily by phone number or email address, use fun filters and effects, send messages, and ask Google Assistant to call using existing devices".

Google plans to add "all the Google Meet features to the Duo app" in the coming weeks, "so users can easily schedule a video meeting at a time that works for everyone, or continue using video calling to instantly connect with a person or group".

The new solution gets other Meet features, including custom virtual backgrounds in calls and meetings, in-meeting chats, live sharing of content, real-time closed captions support, and a participants increase from 32 to 100 participants.

Once all Meet features have been added to Duo, Google Meet customers will get an offer to update to the new version. Additional information is available on this support page.

Now You: do you use Google Meet or Duo? What is your take on this development?

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