Google has begun merging Duo and Meet services into a single application for voice and video calls
In June, Google announced the next phase of organizing messengers and merging Duo video chat and Meet video conferences into a single platform for voice and video calls, and yesterday the process of transferring functions from Meet to Duo actually began. This was one of the first to be noticed by The Verge publication, which with its sarcastic headline (Google Meet meets Duo Meet, with Meet in Duo but Duo isn’t going into Meet) extremely aptly described Google’s confusing approach.
The thing is, Google isn’t technically getting rid of any app—Duo will simply change its name to Meet and combine the features of both apps, while Meet will remain Meet. Yes, it seems… a bit confusing, but at the end of this process you will be left with “Meet Original” (the classic Meet that will eventually be deprecated and retired) and a new Meet that combines Meet and Duo. This new Meet will allow both group and private calls, as well as video conferencing.
If the Duo application is already installed on the phone, then in this case no additional ones are required. Last month, Google released an update to Duo that adds Meet features, and on August 3, Google released an update for iOS and Android that replaces the Duo logo with a Meet icon. By September, anyone who tries to download Google Meet from the official store will get the new combined Meet/Duo app. Google also notes that users from duo.google.com will be automatically redirected to meet.google.com/calling over the next few months.
The remaining Meet users also don’t need to do anything for now — the app will continue to work as it is (without the extra Duo benefits). However, it is worth remembering that the history of the classic Meet is coming to an end, so one day Google will simply stop supporting the program, and it will fill the graveyard with the company’s digital products. Google does not specify when exactly this will happen, but promises to warn existing users of the classic Meet in advance about the feasibility of switching to the new Meet. In short, the scheme is the same as always.
Why this happens, we explained in detail in the previous article dedicated to the merger of Duo and Meet (here). In short, in 2020 Google entrusted the direction of communication products to Vice President Javier Salter to bring order, and since then, he has been actively engaged in organizing messengers and communication services. He actively promotes the idea of unification. Google’s line of communication products still lacks logical structure and harmony, but the company is actively working to streamline everything – consolidating existing services, not just adding new ones (think GChat (or Google Talk), which Google ended last month, and the upcoming execution of Hangouts, which is scheduled for November). We will find out very soon whether Google will be able to get it right this time.
