Duo is being rebranded to Google Meet, and old Google Meet is still sticking around?
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Google’s video chat merger begins: Now there are two “Google Meet” apps
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Of course it is. Years ago, when all of this navigational, design and remarketing chaos began, I thought it was my fault for not "getting it".
Now that I know better, I'm fighting the (a bit tinhatty) urge to become radicalized about business-majors taking over any company and using its resources for the sole purpose of making a name for themselves.
Google's lost and needs some type of parental intervention.
Now that I know better, I'm fighting the (a bit tinhatty) urge to become radicalized about business-majors taking over any company and using its resources for the sole purpose of making a name for themselves.
Google's lost and needs some type of parental intervention.
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Having two different apps with identical names is an interesting definition of "unification".
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It must be me, but I would like messaging/chatting/phoning to require far less effort that what Google apps?/or whatever? currently require.
And as a result there seem to be several companies that recognize my desire for less effort and have stepped in ... does Google think that me supplying even more effort to determine what to do is the way forward .. seems like too much effort for me to figure out.......
And as a result there seem to be several companies that recognize my desire for less effort and have stepped in ... does Google think that me supplying even more effort to determine what to do is the way forward .. seems like too much effort for me to figure out.......
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?... I can send and receive texts through my MBP (as long as the iphone is on) to Android users and mixed groups just fine. IIRC, there may be a setting you need to twiddle for this.
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Isn’t that what recently happened with Pay/Wallet ? The VP makes a big decision about merging/changing/unifying and then walks out of the job, leaving the staff to deal with the aftermath of said decision. Yet more u-turns down the road ?
No wonder this comes across as an especially poor change management… 2 apps with the same name… delayed deployment for users… It’s comedy gold to read about it but I feel for the poor guys who will make to make something happened out of these terrible decisions.
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To be fair, focusing on a single app for this *is* the right move.
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The funny thing about that dilbert cartoon is that it's both precisely accurate and the consultant is actually providing real value! The consultant gains access to a lot of cross-silo information and puts it in the same place, allowing everyone in their siloes to see the ridiculous state of affairs. And gets paid a lot for the privilege.
Then management can actually do something about it, or, more likely, just mutter some bullshit about operationalizing the assets and developing synergies.
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I used to chuckle at the absurdity of it all but now it's just sad. Who the fuck looks at such an action plan and thinks, yeah, nailed it. *sigh*
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It’s hard to imagine a less elegant solution to this problem Google created for itself through sheer lack of any strategy or plan. It’s amazing. It’s like they got lucky with search and have no clue what they’re doing
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I look forward to Crystal meet.
First they have to introduce New Meet, then when everyone hates it bring out Meet Classic, rebrand New Meet as Meet 2, then introduce a lightweight app called Gather, then rebrand that as Diet Meet
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I can't ask my family to try and switch again. They're all on Apple devices. They all love Whats App. My brother and I are the only ones on Android. He and I use Signal now.
Plus, I cannot understand what a "messaging app" even is anymore. Is it audio? Is it for texts? Is it a video phone? The one thing that seems clear is that email is not a messaging app.
It would be great if all these "messaging" apps were more like phones or email-- where it doesn't matter what software the person on the other end is using.
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I completely agree. I want 'messaging' to work like a telephone or email or sms-- where it does not matter what app the other person is using.
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Alien ship observing earth see people in a conference.....and report back to bz4x
"They are made of Meet ......"
"They are made of Meet ......"
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I first looked at the picture... Chat, Meet, Voice, Messages....
Signal does chat
Signal does video
Signal does voice (okay, no POTS calling)
Signal does sms messages (on android)
Why would anyone want four different applications when one will do?
Signal does chat
Signal does video
Signal does voice (okay, no POTS calling)
Signal does sms messages (on android)
Why would anyone want four different applications when one will do?
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CEO hails from the land of 33,000,000 gods. An ancient civilization that's incredibly rich and complicated... a culture with extremely high tolerance - even craving - for ambiguity. It's focused alright, just different.
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Hey Google, hire me to figure out your next content consumption app. First I'll build something new that no one wanted, then I'll delete the old version that everyone liked and steal it's name before announcing how proud I am to be moving to some bullshit executive position at a startup that manufactures FartBoxes - "the bluetooth-enabled cube that you fart into (tm)(r)" - and how I'm so thankful to the LEADERS at Google who allowed me to leave my mark on the world in such an impactful and thoughtful way.
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I use Jitsi (https://jitsi.org)/) for video chats. GPL license and totally free. Very simple interface. Turn off the camera if you need more bandwidth for your audio.
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Google does not have the power over carriers, who still get to choose whether or not Android releases run on phones they sell. And this model cuts into the smaller-but-still-lucrative exorbitant text messaging fees. While most big plans are unlimited, discount plans aren't and they still make bank over international texting.
Oh, and your solution would require them to write a full featured iOS client, or it would be dead before it starts. Come to think of it, THAT would be the most Google way to launch (dead on arrival), so I now think it will happen.
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These clowns keep RUINING the platform. Why stay with android when you can't video chat with family because the don't know the app to use. what asshats.
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Artemis-kun
Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
I'm sure someone else beat me to it and I'm too lazy to read the rest of the comments, but I believe it would be Google's father smelling of elderberries. Google's mother would be a hamster.
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I’ve reached “Buy an iPhone unless you can articulate a good reason not to.” as my default position when asked for advice.
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It's pretty sad how Google has made Microsoft's branding chaos seem reasonable by comparison.
Except for adding a pre-installed "Teams that doesn't really work with the Teams everyone else uses because it's not allowed to connect to the 'School or Work' version" app that is shipped with Windows 11 and is also named Teams but is only for personal use.
The person who came up with that brilliant idea should be sent to work at Google, they'd love to have them.
Except for adding a pre-installed "Teams that doesn't really work with the Teams everyone else uses because it's not allowed to connect to the 'School or Work' version" app that is shipped with Windows 11 and is also named Teams but is only for personal use.
The person who came up with that brilliant idea should be sent to work at Google, they'd love to have them.
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It will all become clear when you realize Google India is fighting with Google America and winning. They find something that works in India then try to force it on everyone else to find that, surprise, what works there does not work here. But if you look just at the sheer number of Android handsets sold there and in similar countries … why would they even care to make products for the US anymore?
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The worst part of all these rebrands and changes of the Google chat/video app is that a lot of Android phones come with some old version of one or two of these preinstalled and can't be uninstalled. Then the phone owner is stuck with the crappy old versions and then have to waste extra storage on the device for the new apps. All around crappy situation.
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I'm a liberal arts dropout and I think I could run this operation better than the people in charge.
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It was about focusing on who to fire to ensure a hefty c-exec bonus this year
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This new, more cohesive lineup will leave one Google video app and three Google chat apps.
That's "cohesive" in a Google kind of way. Meaning they, and their users, are still trying to herd cats.
That's "cohesive" in a Google kind of way. Meaning they, and their users, are still trying to herd cats.
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Been using Duo for a couple years for family video chat and we all rather like it. Works fine. So far it hasn't changed name or icon for me yet.
E
I'm not going to say this is all Pichai's fault but I think he did make it worse faster.
E
I'm not going to say this is all Pichai's fault but I think he did make it worse faster.
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Snarky Robot
Ars Legatus Legionis
It really depends on usage (and on the app).
In “Phone”, I have favorites, recents, contacts, keyboard, and voicemail. In messages, I have a separate filter for unknown contacts, pinned contacts, chat history, a menu to change my shared name and photo, and a new message button. If I swipe down in messages, I get a search bar for quickly trying to find things in messages. FaceTime is the easiest, with recent usage, new FaceTime, and a “create link” button for inviting non-Apple users.
Trying to get a UI to do all of that in a single app is hard. I’ve never seen a “do it all” app that is as user-friendly for all of text/voice/video than any individual app. There are just such different needs. In WhatsApp, you go to calls, find a contact (no option for a keypad as far as I remember) and hit the phone or video icon. Hit the wrong one? Too bad. That’s less likely with separate apps. Apple does have links in places to get to their other apps, but they’re generally not side-by-side. Single apps also can be updated separately as needed, without changing the functionality of the other apps.
There are advantages to apps that do everything, too, obviously, but I just don’t find that they make up for the hassles. Teams does everything. It does groups. It does text conversations. It does video. It does file sharing. It does voice calls (and you can actually get a Teams number that is an actual phone number, so calls aren’t limited to just within Teams. It has a voicemail system, and both the voicemail and the call history is discoverable on the call “tab”.
And I’d never in a million fucking years use it as a primary app.
There’s a laborious list of reasons I prefer it, but suffice it to say, one app for everything is a lot harder to make universally intuitive with a consistent UI. Even if it has everything, it will struggle to excel in any of them, and there’s generally an extra step (selecting the “tab” I want to use) between me and my desired action.
Single-purpose apps are just more flexible.
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Snarky Robot
Ars Legatus Legionis
In addition to the long rants above: badge count. A missed call and a missed text message have very different levels of interest for me.
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So glad I went iPhone years ago to align with my non-techy parents and extended family. I just want to text, call, and Facetime with them, not remember to use whatever app flavor of the month Google is pushing. So incredibly aggravating.
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I don't know anybody that is using any of the google messaging products (work or private). This has been such mess for such a long time that most people/companies (incl. myself) gave up about 5 years ago.
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