As some of the best tech companies evolve, the features they offer through products and services tend to overlap. Google is all too familiar with this and the requisite countermeasures. After building out its consumer and business products as separate projects, some duplication was not to be avoided. But the company is backtracking on this big divide. In a long-anticipated change, Google Duo is on the way to become Google Meet, merging all useful features from both platforms into one. Here is what you need to know, and what timeline you can expect.
The tech titan announced the Duo-Meet merger in June. In July, the signs of the impending change began showing up in Duo. Then, things started moving fast, with every user now seeing indications in the form of a banner in Duo. Following this banner, Google has confirmed that starting August 3, an app update for Duo users on Android and iOS is changing the app’s icon and label to Meet.
Forseeing the need for help and clarifications during this change, Google’s support documentation for the transition is up already.
Duo on Android and iOS will show you a banner on its home screen explaining the changes, so you don’t go on a wild goose chase for Duo in your app drawer. To further reduce the confusion, Google has prepared distinguished app icons seen below — if you see the old blue one for Duo, the merger hasn’t updated your app. If it has, you’ll see the multicolored Meet logo instead. In the rare instance where you are a Duo user who also installed the original Meet app, Google says the next update for the latter will give it a green icon.
If you still see the Duo icon, but the app has all of Meet’s features, you just need to go to the home screen prompt and accept the changes. If you don’t see the Meet features, but you’re sure you updated the app, you may need to sign in with a different Google account — those who set up Duo with a phone number only cannot access Meet features. Meanwhile, if you have been using the original Meet app for online interactions, you won’t get Duo calling features right away, but Google says they’ll arrive eventually, and you can use the app normally until then.
For web users, Duo will be upgraded to Meet, but will retain its current capabilities. In the next few months, the company says the Duo website will redirect users to the one for Meet.
The rollout is phased, so the new app icon and rebranding may not be visible to everyone right away. Come September, the transition should be complete, so anyone looking up Google Meet on the Play Store and Apple App Store, will be redirected to the updated Meet app instead.
In an effort to make Google Workspace apps and those for individual users less separate, Google also recently killed off Hangouts and integrated Google Chat with Gmail. It is clear that the company wants to move to a more unified look and feel across its different services.