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Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

googleblog.blogspot.com

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Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#291

I still think this is a huge mistake. It's great it's easy to use but now Google has two products that do video chat and they do not work together; why? If they eventually discontinue Hangouts then now we have to use two apps for texting and video? The past several years have shown that providing a more integrated experienced typically brings a better user experience so this just smacks as a mistake.

> providing a more integrated experienced typically brings a better user experience

Has it really? One of the reasons I originally signed onto the google ecosystem, was that they had their services split. My youtube was separate from gchat, which was separate from gmail. Now I don't use almost any google products, because I don't want everything linked back to one account. Whenever they do this, google half-asses the integration, and things end up in a weird state

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#292
post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AndroidPolice has an article today[1] that Hangouts has failed as an all-in-one messaging platform. They're going to focus it in on the enterprise - where usage is much more prevalent, apparently - whatever that means. Hangouts is likely to become a Google Apps Slack competitor, I guess. [1]: http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/08/16/google-planning-focu...

I guess it depends on the enterprise... lots of places outright block google services: drive, e-mail, hangouts, etc.

I guess they mean those that already pay for google apps.

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#293
Guess i'm in the minority of users here who loves this app and really wanted a facetime like thing on Android.

Hangouts work, but it's heavy and not a good experience overall. And facetime is ios only, so Duo will definitely bridge this gap.

I read on a Verge's article that Google wants to make Hangouts enterprise focussed by integrating more into the Google apps and keep Allo/Duo as the consumer focused communication apps which i think is a great strategy.

Once all of android users get this pre installed, i think its not difficult to get rest of the users use this.

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#294

It's already bad enough that I have a row of chat apps (WhatsApp, Messenger, Hangouts, Skype, Slack, Telegram etc.) on my phone because I can't get everyone I know to agree on one app and now, Google's trying to get me to add yet another icon to that list! I love Telegram but I couldn't get more than a few friends to try it out and even then, no one checks their Telegram anymore because none of THEIR friends are on i…

> It's already bad enough that I have a row of chat apps

And this is why we need to be using open protocols, instead of walled-off systems. If I had one client that could integrate all of these, I'd use them. But since I need one install per chat-system, I end up just using none of them.

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#295
post #53

"Announces", yes; "releases", no. The Google Play Store offers only a "pre-register" button. Yet it has 4.9 stars already. Looking forward to seeing an analysis of the protocol. Does it go through Google servers, or is it really peer to peer? How does the "end to end encryption" work? How are the keys generated and exchanged? Do the servers have the keys? Are you sure?

Agreed... I was looking for the magic words "uses the Signal protocol" or something along those lines.

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#296
post #224
post #189

Why didn't they just update hangouts? I actually use hangouts for video calls with relative frequency, and I wish it was better adapted to changes in network speed like they say Duo is. I think it would be better if "Duo" was just integrated into hangouts as an update. I like hangouts because it allows me to use one app for voice, text and video.

AndroidPolice has an article today[1] that Hangouts has failed as an all-in-one messaging platform. They're going to focus it in on the enterprise - where usage is much more prevalent, apparently - whatever that means. Hangouts is likely to become a Google Apps Slack competitor, I guess. [1]: http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/08/16/google-planning-focu...

Also, the security aspect: Hangouts would get a bunch of backlash in the Enterprise world if they added the Allo type features to it. So they have pretty much to have separate systems for Enterprise vs Consumer if they want to integrate all the Google Now capabilities.

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#297
post #7

Is there anything currently that works similarly without a google or Facebook account? My dad is so computer/phone illiterate that he cannot/won't register for either of these. It should work across iPhone/Android. I ask because video calling between my son and my dad is no longer as simple as FaceTime after I switched to Android

I think there is something called imo in which video conferencing works in 2G network

Why the down vote? There actually is an app called "imo" which does both text and video chat in skew speed network

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#298
post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jobs said it at the keynote when FaceTime was announced. They never managed to follow through, and ultimately had to change the way FaceTime works, because of a lawsuit by a patent troll.

But they did do the work to circumvent the patent. "Patents" can't logically be the reason FaceTime isn't an open standard today. I doubt they ever were. Apple simply realized that FaceTime was an effective sales driver for iOS hardware and wanted to keep that competitive advantage more than they wanted to follow through on Jobs's promise.

The patents forced them to route through their own servers instead of peer to peer. Seems like a logical reason not to make that an open standard to me.

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#299
yay! one more app to do the same thing, but "simpler" "faster" and now its "human"

here is what Hangouts was described as

https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2015/08/google-hangouts-now-...

simpler, faster, beautiful

and what more, now I have to use ONLY my mobile to use duo, which means no more comfort of my mac or desktop, I have to keep my phone attached to my face. yay!!

I taught my technology challenged mom to use the terrible hangouts interface, now I have to teach her Allo? thanks, I am moving her to facetime or skype. at least they work reliably and no danger of a new epyks or timefaceme improvments anytime soon

Re: Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app

#300
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can assure you that you will never have to reboot your laptop before it will work... as it will not work at all on your laptop. It is for Android and iOS only.

don't you know that you can run android apps on any computer that can run google chrome ? [1] personally I stay far away from chrome and any thing google, so for running android apps on my laptop I go the emulator route [2], I use genymotion. [1]: http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/3/8339197/android-apps-on-win... [2]: http://techapple.net/2014/05/5-best-android-emulators-linux-...

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