Back in June, Google announced that it was merging Duo with Meet in a migration that’s currently underway. As part of that, Google’s first “Meet” app is now called “Meet (original)” with a different icon.
On Android, “Meet (original)” was previously called “Meet” (and “Hangouts Meet” at the beginning). The new name and green icon — which is somewhat of an homage to the Hangouts era — introduced with version 2022.07.10 is a result of the company planning to use the “Google Duo” app as the foundation for its latest video/audio messaging strategy.
Duo is being updated to get all of the enterprise video calling features you associate with a Zoom or Microsoft Teams competitor. This includes:
- Virtual backgrounds in calls and meetings
- Scheduled meetings
- Text chat during video calls
- Screen sharing
- Real-time closed captions to aid accessibility
- 100-person calls
That said, Duo features like making calls via phone number or email address will remain, along with Google Assistant integration on devices like the Nest Hub Max.
The first phase of this transition is in process, but Google is keeping the “Duo” name until all functionality is moved over.
Once that is complete, “Google Duo” will be renamed to “Google Meet” and “Meet (original)” should disappear. That should take place “later this year.” This process makes sense from a logistics standpoint as Duo has over 5 billion downloads compared to 100 million for Meet. That app was mostly downloaded by enterprise users, which also have the option to use the Meet tab within the Gmail mobile apps.
More on Google Meet:
- Hangouts on Air is back as Google Meet brings YouTube livestreaming to free Gmail
- Google One 2TB+ plans add premium Meet video features, like no 1-hour group limit
- Google Meet adding support for anonymous questions and poll responses
- Hangouts on Android and iOS stops working for many
Thanks Jondan!
Author: Abner Li
Source: 9TO5Google
