
Google Duo, a simple 1-to-1 video calling app - marban
https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2016/08/meet-google-duo-simple-1-to-1-video.html?m=1
======
dzmien
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.

~~~
eeeeeeeeeeeee
Seriously. The entire Google Hangouts experience is extremely unfriendly and
difficult to use. It's a great service, but the UX is awful. It's hard to get
any non-technical person into a Hangouts call for the first time.

~~~
frankydp
[http://hangouts.google.com/start](http://hangouts.google.com/start)

That link can actually make it much easier for the use case you described. The
url after it loads can be shared.

------
karma_vaccum123
I know these will be preinstalled on Android, but many friends and family use
iOS and I will feel silly asking them to install Duo _and_ Allo.

Hangouts is able to mix voice, video and text just fine. Why start requiring
separate apps?

This is Google at its dumbest. They are squandering the small amount of
momentum Hangouts has.

~~~
wutbrodo
Google's communications strategy has been bafflingly dumb for years and years
now. Almost my ENTIRE social network (that was on chat; this was before every
part of society was "on the Internet") used to be on Gchat. That's a massive
network-effects advantage that they had ages before anyone else did (including
Facebook, but Facebook's network did surpass them with the ability to find
someone by their face).

Almost a decade of inexplicably stupid product decisions later, they've
squandered their hugely valuable lead (and then some). I can't imagine why
anyone would go out of their way to use any Google product whose usefulness is
at all dependent on network effects (I've completely ignored the launch of
Allo and Duo and, years after everyone else, have pretty much moved to FB
Messenger as my primary messaging app). This is a pretty chronic Google
problem that I noticed both from the inside and outside: their engineering and
design talent are incredible, but the people responsible for the product and
marketing side are evidently really, really bad at what they do.

This is part of why products like GMail or Google Search do so well, and
products like G+ so poorly: you could be the only person in the world using
GMail and it would be just as useful (and well-designed), while the quality of
products like G+ depend less on their quality _per se_ and more on network
effects, which Google's product/marketing is clearly too incompetent to do
well.

~~~
csydas
> This is a pretty chronic Google problem that I noticed both from the inside
> and outside: their engineering and design talent are incredible, but the
> people responsible for the product and marketing side are evidently really,
> really bad at what they do.

See, I don't even think it's marketing, it's Google not understanding what
they already have and engineering a solution without a problem. Hangouts as an
app on mobile is okay - I have qualms, but it works well enough. Hangouts on
Desktop though is horrible, and it's integration into Gmail is frustrating at
best (it took them a long time to get something as simple as status messages
back to Hangouts after the switch). I get the impression Google saw what was
happening with Slack and wanted Hangouts to be that (and also a successor to
Wave); a persistent "better than email" communication method with every bell
and whistle you could want for communication. But since Hangouts was released,
they've removed the few fun social features, removed hangout plugins, and just
took what was feature-rich and dumbed it down to the point where I wonder why
I should have an entire separate page open dedicated to hangouts when even
Skype is a more graceful solution with more functionality.

I really liked gChat when it was small and out of the way. I won't make the
claim "everyone used it", but we certainly enjoyed in our GAFE environment as
it was an appropriate intermediate between email and phone call.

Duo makes me ask the same question now - why do I want this as opposed to just
Hangouts, unless video is going to be removed from Hangouts or only Duo is
going to get improved performance updates. This seems like it could easily be
a hangouts update instead of a standalone application, and Hangouts is already
available cross-platform on iOS and Android, or via any modern web-browser.

~~~
izacus
Oh yes, Googles insistence to the horrible Chrome plugin (and ONLY chrome
plugin, you're SoL if you want to use any other browser) instead of a slim
desktop app like iMessage/Telegram is pretty much the reason why I've
abandoned Hangouts.

~~~
Senji
You're aware Hangouts has a firefox plugin too right?

~~~
VikingCoder
And there's hangouts.google.com if you just want to hit it on a web page...

~~~
fzzzy
How did I never know about this. How long has it existed?

Google is terrible at marketing what they have.

------
jalami
I'm still putting my money on vector.im and matrix.org. Closed source
communication apps are not appealing to me, even if they come with an E2E
promise.

From a business perspective this makes sense for Google. A big problem with
Skype was always the lack of ubiquity. Lot of people had it, but it required
another install and explicit configuration. Now that Skype is nearly bundled
with W10 and WebRTC has made skype.com trivial, the gap for Google to move in
is closing. If this rolls out with Google branded Android, people will use it
irrespective of its merits (a la bundled Internet Explorer). Interop on iOS
makes it stand out from Facetime. There's always room to change terms later
when it becomes a household name.

Also, with all these services adding an E2E sticker on their communications,
Google's hand was forced, they're not trend setters here and they shouldn't be
applauded for being extremely late to the privacy game.

~~~
NoGravitas
I'm following matrix.org and vector.im development, hoping they'll get good
and take off. Main thing stopping me from jumping on board is that running a
matrix home server is said to be very resource intensive and my home server is
already overloaded. Maybe later.

~~~
mxuribe
I've actually been running my own matrix.org home server quite fine for over a
couple of months now on a $5/month vps via digital ocean. ADMITTEDLY, the
scale of users on this instance is low in numbers, so your mileage may vary
with more users, more activity, etc. I'm using this low-spec vps simply to
test things out, and learn about matrix.org. You should give it a try. Whether
you use digital ocean or any other competitor vps provider, if after
installing the matrix.org home server you find its not to your liking, you
just kill off the vps; cheap and easy experiment! ;-)

~~~
abstractbeliefs
does anyone run matrix hosting that you don't need to care about, and is still
reasonable about security and privacy?

99% of people will never run their own matrix server, and 98% of people will
never pay $5/mo for a chat service.

Basically, where can the general public sign up for a matrix account that's
free, offers a good experience, and respects my rights?

~~~
mxuribe
Yeah good points, not everyone needs to host their own matrix.org home server;
users can simply hop on existing ones. The one on matrix.org or vector.im are
pretty robust and actually allows public registration (and you can have
private rooms for privacy, etc.). Check out:
[http://matrix.org/docs/projects/try-matrix-
now.html](http://matrix.org/docs/projects/try-matrix-now.html) or directly to
[https://vector.im](https://vector.im)

Also, I should have stated, I hosted my home server on a vps, but one can also
totally just do it on your own server at home (so you could avoid paying any
vps provider)...again, for those who have an interest in hosting their own.

Personally, my goal was to host the server for my family...but the really big
advantage of decentralized platforms like matrix.org (and others like gnu
social, etc.!) is that my host can connect with others...hey email has worked
successfully connecting billions of decentralized people for so long now, so
there is precedent for this type of concept.

I suggest heading over to vector.im - its the easiest on-ramp - and give it a
try! i hope that helps!

~~~
abstractbeliefs
That sounds ideal, thank you. I'm generally increasingly convinced that while
decentralised services are great for many powerusers, they too often shift too
much of the burden onto users, vastly diminishing the market penetration of
what are nominally good ideas.

Another example of this is the current IndieWeb movement, which while great,
doesn't fix very much because 1) low penetration means you have to republish
all your content back into proprietary silos, regranting them license to use
that we're supposed to be escaping and 2) by forcing people to set up and
develop their own platforms means that the majority of indieweb blogs are
subtly incompatible through bugs and mostly suck up time that could be used
blogging with time spent to fix the blog.

:(

~~~
mxuribe
You hit the nail on the head with the challenges that you stated! While I'm a
really, really big fan of decentralized platforms AND indieweb, i acknowledge
that many (though not all) of the apps to allow users to on-ramp are not yet
as simple as those that the proprietary silos/platforms might offer. Or the
apps might be ok but requires more time/committment for users to set up things
before extracting benefits. This of course sort of prevents otherwise willing
new users from joining the fray...but I'm comforted by the fact that this is
almost exactly how it was many years ago when the web first became available
to the public, and many people thought things were "too tough" to get people
onto the web; and yet here we are with so many people on the web. I'll admit
that perhaps I'm an optimist. ;-) But i feel we just need to get a few
Goldilocks-type killer apps to drastically ramp up user engagement. Cheers!

------
helloworld
Sounds like Duo has a simple user experience, which is great. But it doesn't
solve the eye-contact problem with video calls today.

When you look at the person on the screen whom you're talking to, that person
sees you looking away, because you're not looking into the camera, which is
somewhere on the edge of the screen. So you don't make eye contact with the
person you're talking to.

And for me, that makes video calls feel weird.

~~~
roryisok
Can't they just put a camera behind the screen? Been waiting for this for over
a decade

~~~
natrius
Now that people are coming up with ways to put people's real facial
expressions in VR, most video calls are probably going to be replaced with
avatars generated from your face that use your facial expressions captured by
the front-facing camera.

[https://vimeo.com/156034648](https://vimeo.com/156034648)

~~~
starquake
I think a floating head is a lot scarier than people not looking directly at
me...

~~~
carey
I was imagining something a bit more like
[http://store.steampowered.com/app/274920](http://store.steampowered.com/app/274920).

------
nxc18
Wow, I'm so glad they made yet another video calling app. I was almost
beginning to feel like I knew how to call the people I care about. So glad
I'll start hearing 'I'll call you on Duo', which will be great when I'm at my
desktop computer.

~~~
feelin_googley
And it let's the caller see what you're doing before they call. Brilliant!

Of course, people like Zuckerberg can't use this feature because they cover up
the camera lens on their laptops with tape.

~~~
camiller
No, it lets the recipient of the call see the caller, so they can choose to
answer or not. It does not let the caller see who they are calling before they
answer. Also the tape on your laptop won't matter since it is phone only for
now.

~~~
feelin_googley
It responds to a call by accepting the connection and a payload (video) before
the user has decided whether to "accept" the call?

"... since it is phone only for now."

For now?

Yikes.

------
vthallam
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.

~~~
JshWright
As a Project Fi user, I will very much miss the ability to seamlessly carry on
SMS conversations from Hangouts on all of my devices. I really hope that
functionality is added to Allo.

~~~
mpwoz
Have you tried pushbullet? I use it for texting from my desktop and it works
quite well. I'm not affiliated with them, just a happy user.

[https://www.pushbullet.com/](https://www.pushbullet.com/)

~~~
JshWright
Yeah, pushbullet is alright (it's what I used before switching to Fi), but
direct integration with Hangouts is _so_ much cleaner. It just works
everywhere, on every device.

------
tdkl
No desktop support, one device only, they must be joking.[1]

I just hope it can be disabled with rest of the Google bloatware when I buy my
next phone.

[1][http://www.reddit.com/r/android/comments/4xxnjl/_/d6jawai](http://www.reddit.com/r/android/comments/4xxnjl/_/d6jawai)

~~~
Tobold
Yes, this my major complaint, too.

I have 3 Android devices and can use this only on the one that has a SIM card?
And even if the others had SIM cards, they'd be on different accounts? WTF.

~~~
tdkl
Viber solves this. You need a phone number to create an account, but other
devices can be added as trusted devices.

When you install the client on such device, Viber app on the main phone serves
as a authenticator and displays a QR code/PIN that you enter on the other
device. This adds the other device as trusted and can use the account,
contacts get synced to it.

I have no clue who in Google really thinks their solution will be popular.
Someone need to shake up that company a bit and make it step out of their
bubble.

~~~
spv
Wire also takes a similar approach.

I think google is trying to mimic whatsapp here: A single device with end to
end encryption so that your keys never leave the device.

------
BinaryIdiot
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.

~~~
CaptSpify
> 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

~~~
BinaryIdiot
> Has it really?

Absolutely and without a question. You will find exceptions here and there
where the integration was done poorly or ultimately didn't make sense but the
idea around providing integrated experiences is eliminating friction. Smart
phones are fast but switching from one application to another is _incredibly
slow_. Yes it's easy and yes you can download special launchers to slightly
improve this but the fact remains that switching applications runs the risk of
an application being unloaded from memory, it requires typically several taps
and possibly yet another initialization.

But what if it works together in the same app? Take Google Maps and Waze for
instance. Waze is awesome for gathering social data around traffic whereas
Google Maps had some of that but not nearly at the same level of detail.
Google integrated the Waze data into Google Maps so now, in the same
application, you have both. No switching required. No need to run two mapping
apps (because, let's face it, Waze's directions were never the greatest).

Let's go in a different direction now. Android didn't natively support finger
print readers when companies, such as Samsung, started to include them. Due to
the terrible integration you couldn't use finger prints so much of anything
beyond unlocking your phone and even then there were several security
vulnerabilities around that very point. Now that Google has included finger
print reading, natively, into the platform you can use it everywhere. It's no
longer a weird, separate, nebulous thing.

Maybe those examples are not the best but the point is that you must always
march towards less and less friction. Once your app is fast and good enough
the next step is integrations into other apps / systems to decrease the
friction.

~~~
CaptSpify
If all your focusing on is UI, than yeah, sure, I guess. I think things are
more complicated than that though.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
I'm only focusing on UX. Sometimes that's UI. Sometimes that's APIs. Sometimes
that's shell commands. UX covers a wide range of items from casual users to
hardcore software developers.

The best UX typically wins. If the implementation is complex or not is
immaterial.

------
nagarjun
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 it. Even though I love the tech here, I
can't get enough people to try and use it.

Not sure why this had to be its own app. Could have just been included into
Allo. Also, all of the other apps I mentioned above have some form a desktop
app (which is in a way, the biggest factor for me considering that's where I
spend most of my time). Sigh! Great tech, terrible packaging.

~~~
T-1000
Someone should build a meta video calling app: Make a normal phone call, and
if the app detects that both parties have a common video calling app installed
on their devices, the meta app notifies the caller ("Press * for video") and
helps reconnect the call with the video calling app.

~~~
draugadrotten
Hmm that's how iPhone works.

~~~
T-1000
And that is an open standard that works with Skype, Duo and other non-apple
alternatives?

------
aluhut
I don't have a number on my Pad...there is not even a Sim in there. Why can't
it be just their damn Google account?! I dont even want to give my phone
number to them and when I'm in a foreign country i don't want them to easy
Switch between WiFi and the super expensive Roaming just because I went in the
wrong corner of the Hotel room...

~~~
kyrra
The device you activate Duo on doesn't need a sim. Just put in your phone's
number and you can activate when it comes through.

~~~
aluhut
As I wrote above: I don't want to give them my phone number.There are other
ways of registration. I don't want my phone number flying around in God knows
what ad Networks. This is unneccessary madness and nobody should be OK with
that

------
ende
Have they announced when it will be discontinued?

~~~
emsy
A bit cynical but that was my initial thought as well. It's sad because
FaceTime exists for so long and is so easy to use and I'd really like to have
an app that I can use with both of my parents (one Android, one iOS). But I
see Google failing with this already.

~~~
euyyn
So you rather Duo not exist and keep not having an app that you can use with
both of your parents?

~~~
simonh
Because there are absolutely no other video chat apps in existence on both
Android and iOS? Duo is the only possible option?

The point is given the many, many other video chat apps that do already exist
and fill this function, several of them produced by Google, what does Google
think it's doing bringing out yet another one.

~~~
jamornh
I thought Google already has a product that does video calls across iOS and
Android... Hangouts. I don't understand why they are doing this independently
of a product they already have.

~~~
deong
No one understands anything at all to do with Google's strategy on Hangouts.
Certainly no one working at Google does.

~~~
snaky
Agree.

> Mr. Nikhyl Singhal joined Credit Karma after four years at Google, where he
> held several senior product roles, including leading Hangouts, Google Talk,
> Google Voice and Google Photos.

------
soufron
Wow this is so much the future... Between my 4g video native capability, skype
(remember), facetime, etc. that was missing. Thank you Google for putting
well-paid engineers to solvant this.

~~~
blokhasie
How does this add any value above existing products that do the same?

~~~
camiller
Well, I heard skype got rid of encryption, while this is encrypted end to end.

You don't run this through your google account, only your phone number is
needed to sign up.

The new video protocol supposedly degrades better if you go somewhere where
the service is slower.

I'm sure there are others.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _You don 't run this through your google account, only your phone number is
> needed to sign up._

This does not add any value if I want to have two different Duo accounts -
e.g., one for personal use, and one for business use.

------
nitin_flanker
Why is Google launching multiple apps with similar functionalities?

They already had Hangouts, they recently launched a group sharing app
"Spaces". And now a new video calling app "Duo". They also have an app "Allo"
which is another chatting platform.

I am not complaining or anything, I am just curious about what are they
planning to do with their old apps? i.e. Hangouts?

~~~
Navarr
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...](http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/08/16/google-planning-focus-
hangouts-business-consumers-allo-duo-release/)

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

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

------
sotojuan
On the same week that they discontinued Hangouts on Air in favor of YouTube?
Why is Google always making and closing stuff?

~~~
alaskamiller
Google culture is hiring the smartest or most motivated college grads, paying
them to babysit legacy money printing systems built by the generation before
them, then occasionally encouraging them to team up and clone popular services
from other companies and startups.

The clones get passed around the campus for dogfooding until enough interest
builds up and the project goes up the chain of command until a VP (at the time
Marissa) signs off on it with notes on what to improve along with granting the
necessary resources to spin it up.

Then if someone decides the project has legs they figure out how to engineer
it for Google's audience and launch. If it doesn't work then the team disperse
and move on to another project. Or it works and the team gets a moment in the
sun.

Every single popular thing on the internet has a Google clone somewhere in the
intranet.

~~~
yeukhon
It's an unfortunate situation for Google product engineers. It's basically a
competition. It has some benefit and has some really big downside. If my
reference is correct, usually there are more than one team building the same
product (e.g. Google Plus).

~~~
alaskamiller
It's run now like a big college hackathon.

------
sidcool
Sounds promising. But not sure what this adds on top of Hangouts, which has a
great group (and of course one to one) video calling feature. The only
difference seems that Duo works with phone numbers, not Google Accounts.

~~~
karma_vaccum123
This limits and subtracts from Hangouts for no real benefit.

Hangouts works on phones, tablets and laptops. It does voice, video and text.
Fragmenting these features across apps and devices seems to be a major step
backwards...but apparently two apps is simpler than one?

~~~
sidcool
This strategy seems to have born out of Facebook's success with breaking up
the app into specialized features (Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp
etc.)

~~~
allendoerfer
The only break up here was Messenger, and even there they did not just
continue the feature but gradually phased it out to make sure people are
actually following. Messenger still uses the same network behind and did not
create a separate one.

Instagram and Whatsapp are just examples of how not to kill a successful
product. Turns out it's quite simple: You change nothing.

~~~
intoverflow2
>Instagram and Whatsapp are just examples of how not to kill a successful
product. Turns out it's quite simple: You change nothing.

For a long time it seemed like the strategy was to change nothing. Now it's
become clear the strategy is to be scared of changing anything, just leave it
to fester and fall behind then panic and recklessly start cloning competitors
features and diluting what made the service compelling in the first place.

------
Animats
"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?

~~~
LukeB_UK
From the post: "We’re beginning to roll out Duo for Android and iOS today, and
it will be live worldwide in the next few days."

------
knocte
End-to-end encrypted but not opensource is just trusting that it's really
(well)encrypted.

Thanks, but no thanks.

~~~
misingnoglic
I'll trust that Google knows what they're doing when implementing encryption.

~~~
Sylos
The question is not whether Google knows how to do proper end-to-end-
encryption, the question is whether they want to do it. They have a clear
incentive to not do it properly, which is being able to sift through your data
to sell it to advertisers.

~~~
tomschlick
Would be an interesting test to start chatting on an well established account
(a few years old) about something you have never talked about before and see
if you get relevant ads.

~~~
mvdwoord
I did that some years ago on hangouts and it was almost real time. My buddy
was on a machine without ad blocker and as soon as we started talking (as an
experiment) about cars and mentioning a certain brand a few times, he received
ads for that brand moments later.

------
limeyy
Ok, just a FaceTime clone. When Apple added it to iOS it seemed redudant
initially (because of Skype etc), but now everyone is using it all the time,
because it's phone number based: It's a success.

So the real question is, if they wanted to make this, what the hell took them
so long?

It really smells like a mistake, and catch-up, almost pitiful at this point.

~~~
jalami
I agree, they're really late to the game. It seems like a slam dunk business-
wise as they can get the android and IOS market on the same app and cultivate
a household name.

They would have been better doing so before the E2E craze went mainstream-ish,
again from a business perspective. Now they can still leverage meta data, but
it's not a juicy and lucrative as say, reading everyone's emails.

------
comex
> You shouldn’t have to worry about whether your call will connect, or if your
> friend is using the same type of device as you are.

...From the blurb from app that only runs on two operating systems (notably
excluding Windows Phone), is proprietary (preventing third party clients from
being written for other systems), and has no support for desktop operating
systems (laptops are devices too).

On the last point, I suppose mobile-only for messengers is the new normal, but
I for one frequently use iMessage and FaceTime from my MacBook in addition to
my phone - depending on which device is closer, mainly - so Allo would be a
significant downgrade for me. For video calls, laptops have an advantage over
phones if there's more than one person on your side of the call, since you can
get farther away from the camera to let everyone into the picture, without
awkwardly keeping your arm held out horizontally or whatever.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Credit where credit is due, most Microsoft apps, like Skype, work on Mac, iOS,
Android, and Windows. I have gravitated to Skype not because it isn't an awful
piece of software (it totally is), but because nobody can tell me they can't
run it.

------
lazyjones
Wasn't WebRTC going to solve all this (e.g.
[https://appr.tc](https://appr.tc))? What happened, has it become browser
cruft?

~~~
lozf
WebRTC handles the actual p2p audio and video, but has no method of signaling
the other party for attention to actually join the "call", -- no concept of
userid, so you'd always need to send a link to your WebRTC service via another
channel - SMS, WhatsApp, Email, IRC, ... or some other "new" service, that's
really just a wrapper to handle the userid / notification problem, and uses
WebRTC underneath.

~~~
nsgi
Notifications are possible with Service Workers.

------
seanp2k2
No reason to get excited about this, they'll just abandon it in a year or two
like the rest of their products which aren't selling ads.

------
buro9
I'm going to presume that this isn't available to anyone who has a Google Apps
account, as that has been the trend of nearly all product launches by Google
recently.

[https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/play/86WVa8b_...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/play/86WVa8b_3i4)

Not available to Apps accounts:

* Google Family Library Sharing (Android apps sharing)

* Google Play Music Family Sharing (music collection sharing)

* Project Fi

* Google Spaces

* YouTube Red

* YouTube Music

Given that is most of the recent product launches, the chances of Duo and Allo
being added to that list would appear to be very high.

~~~
d2p
This one actually says no account required. Seems to use your phone number,
like WhatsApp etc. do

(that also probably means it'll never leave mobile to be usable on desktops,
like Hangouts?!)

------
guelo
I think there's definitely space for a video conference app that's simpler
then Hangouts and cross-platform in contrast to Facetime.

Here's the US play store link where you can pre-register
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.tachyon)

------
mkj
Is this using the same parts underneath as hangouts?

------
zuxfer
I still like google talk better. It was simpler. Elegant. And it was paradise
for IM lovers.

------
losteverything
In my entire post tech life and post tech environment I have never seen anyone
use, talk or desire to have a video call. (Save 1 when a patron tested
FaceTime on their new iPhone.)

What will make video calling desireable for the average Joe?

~~~
camiller
My daughter uses facetime every evening talking to one or another of her
girlfriends from high school. I think certain demographics will be more
inclined to use it than others.

~~~
rogerdpack
So in essence this is an attempt to be a facetime competitor?

~~~
camiller
Facetime/Facebook video chat/et. al. Granted it has some limitations that
would prevent it from, at least initially, being a full competitor. I suspect
that over time Google will flesh out it's features with either a web version,
or dedicated apps for other platforms. Right now I think they are at the
minimal viable product stage.

------
abstractbeliefs
Why would one use this when similar functionality (Hangouts video streaming)
has just been killed and moved to Youtube Live?

~~~
bogomipz
Video Hangouts has been killed? Isn't Hangouts a business-centric offering, I
haven't heard that its been killed. Its a large part of "Chrome for Work."

At any rate these have different use cases, one is enterprise focused and the
other is mobile only.

~~~
camiller
The hangouts-on-air live streaming was killed/moved to youtube. You can still
do group video calls in hangouts, just not spin out a live stream for non-
participant viewers.

------
noahmbarr
Facetime benefits from Apple's consistent hardware compression.

It's why Skype and other platforms have had such a hard time touching it in
terms of video quality.

------
decayy
Knock Knock feature is probably the worst feature i can think of to put in a
video calling app.

It sounds so fun rejecting a loved ones call because you're busy.

------
serpix
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

~~~
witty_username
Some searching yielded [https://appear.in/](https://appear.in/)

(I'm not affiliated with that website)

~~~
spdionis
Which by the way works very well for our daily meetings.

------
skynetv2
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-...](https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2015/08/google-hangouts-now-simpler-
faster-more.html)

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

------
soufron
How many similar apps do we have already? We are increasingly solving problems
that dont exist.

~~~
0xmohit
> We are increasingly solving problems that dont exist.

In the process, we are attempting to divert attention from unsolved real
problems.

------
mattkevan
Are the same people responsible for Microsoft's endless rebranding of products
and services now working at Google?

It's exhausting keeping track of what's either just been released or cancelled
on any particular day.

------
kevindeasis
Man this and allo looks really interesting. I really can't wait for it to come
out in Canada. I definitely wanna know how these product managers/owners or
product feature creators are doing it in Google.

------
pinewurst
What's in this for Google? Another source of information to collate?

------
HaloZero
It sounds like they're just trying to replace Facetime. I know my parent adore
Facetime but they don't know all about this email stuff. They just know they
want to call me.

~~~
euyyn
What email stuff?

------
unexpected
Is anyone able to download this? I am trying to download this on iOS, the App
Store is giving me the message "this application is not available to download
the in the US Store"

strange!

~~~
simplehuman
"We’re beginning to roll out Duo for Android and iOS today, and it will be
live worldwide in the next few days"

------
bfrog
I still long for the days of a real gtalk native app

------
josh_carterPDX
Can't wait to hear how they're going to change it four times then abandon it
and announce they're working more on Hangouts.

------
marme
Terrible name there is already a popular security auth app called Duo with a
similarly named mobile app. [https://duo.com/](https://duo.com/)

This is likely trademark infringement because they are both on the app store
and it is easy to confuse the two apps and they are both the top 2 apps now on
the play store

------
TheHappyRock
I'll be happy if they can settle on a plan and stick to it for more than 6
months. The GChat, Voice, and Hangouts strategy has been frustrating because
the features I wanted would land in different apps with varying levels of
support. For example, hangouts dialer is nice for free voip, but I am not sure
I can fully let go of voice.

------
spullara
It is really painful that Apple couldn't open source FaceTime because of a
patent troll.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/1xuzif/what_ever_hap...](https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/1xuzif/what_ever_happened_to_making_facetime_an_open/)

------
soufron
Reading the comments... You guys know that any 3G/4G phone with a camera can
make videocalls with awesome quality, right ?

~~~
shermozle
For only 60c/minute and I think I've had one call where it was correctly
configured kn both ends.

------
diimdeep
Guy with beard and hipster glasses - check.

------
atxcrab
I wonder why there is no integration with default contacts app in android . I
think its a bad idea to release app with simplicity as objective with out
providing a simple way of using it with out knowing much about it.

.. or is it because its two teams at google ?

------
netrus
APK is now available: [http://www.apkmirror.com/apk/google-inc/duo-by-
google/duo-by...](http://www.apkmirror.com/apk/google-inc/duo-by-google/duo-
by-google-1-0-130018012-rc1_rc29-release/)

------
anentropic
Hope it works better than Hangouts

i.e. without randomly having to reboot your laptop before it will work

~~~
syshum
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.

~~~
bigbugbag
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...](http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/3/8339197/android-apps-on-windows-mac-
linux-chrome-os) [2]: [http://techapple.net/2014/05/5-best-android-emulators-
linux-...](http://techapple.net/2014/05/5-best-android-emulators-linux-run-
android-apps-linux-ubuntulinuxmintfedoraarchlinuxopensusemageiacentos-etc/)

------
sidcool
I have been trying to get my phone number verified but it's not working

~~~
mderazon
They block non US phones for now

~~~
sidcool
It's working now though.

------
syshum
Not for everyone, just People on Android and ios mobile devices...

~~~
wrsh07
By my math and some light search, Android | iOS accounts for 95% of
smartphones sold [1], and there are about 2 billion smartphone users [2].

Is 1.9 billion a small number? I understand there are people who don't use
smartphones, but this obviously isn't targeted at them. Besides, many people
use phones for nearly all personal communication [I use mine for everything,
including email].

I certainly get being upset that some apps are mobile only [especially
productivity apps]. But this one kind of makes sense.

[1] [http://tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis/96-8-percent-new-
sma...](http://tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis/96-8-percent-new-smartphones-
sold-are-android-or-ios-record-slowest-growth-gartner-278605.html)

[2] [http://www.statista.com/statistics/330695/number-of-
smartpho...](http://www.statista.com/statistics/330695/number-of-smartphone-
users-worldwide/)

~~~
1_2__3
Yes, it matters. Google et al. we trying to convince the world desktop is dead
because they make more money on mobile. Maybe fine for snap chatting teens,
but the rest of the world needs grown-up software that Google doesn't want to
bother to provide.

------
shidoshi
I think it's uncool for Dug and team that google decided to name this the same
thing as their product. But, the big dog will always eat your food first.

------
rattler
I like that the apps name is tachyon.

------
jmspring
Why should a video app be required for N of M situations? Just do one app that
works well.

------
izacus
Does this even work from a deskop computer or is it a mobile app only?

~~~
DropbearRob
that's a great question. I cant test it because as it stands it isn't showing
up for me (just showing that I'm still "registered" for it) but since it
connects using a phone number (like whatsapp) I wonder how they authenticate
the phone number on desktops/laptops? surely it'd be some kind of 2 factor
auth, so it should be possible.. but I wonder whether it ships ready to do it.

------
vorotato
No desktop version? Why would anyone use this over hangouts?

------
jijji
They are trying to do what viber has been doing for years

------
wnevets
Just bring back google talk and end this madness.

------
greggman
So much for being easy. I don't have sms

------
satyajeet23
Facetime Rival? Nope.

------
subhrm
Not in India :(

------
aandon
aaaaaaand it's not on the App Store

~~~
sidcool
It's mentioned in the blog that it's going to be rolled out slowly over the
next few days.

~~~
tommygunz99
But there's a link. And clicking it doesn't work

------
sickbeard
Reminds me of Microsoft. Makes a bunch of products.. nobody cares.

------
techaddict009
Aren't a bit late to the bot party?

------
akerro
>a feature in Duo called Knock Knock which lets you see live video of your
caller before you answer, giving you a sense of what they’re up to and why
they want to chat

Where can I report this as a bug? That literally misses the point of "call".
Call starts before it's started for a caller.

~~~
alain94040
Does Knock Knock offer the same possibilities as chat roulette?

------
davidone_f
Cool, let's try this. Oh my device (android 5.1.1 cm12) is not supported (yet?
anymore?). Well, I think I can survive also without this super cool
application :)

------
ProxCoques
Video calling is a great example of something you don't need, but because you
can do it, you do it. It's also impossible to refuse a video call for fear of
being seen as secretive or worse when in fact you just don't care to look up
somebody's nose when you talk to them.

I also wonder if it's mainly nerds who care about video calling because it
speaks to their otherwise rather broken social skills. "Normal people look at
each other when talking, right? Look! Using this heap of high tech makes me a
normal person!"

Meanwhile, I note that amongst actual normal people, interest in video calling
is low because they see it for what it is: a poor substitute for the real
thing. Just as no normal person is into cyber dildonics.

~~~
sspiff
> It's also impossible to refuse a video call for fear of being seen as
> secretive or worse

Really? I refuse video calls all the time (or answer with audio only), and
people never make a problem of it.

> I also wonder if it's mainly nerds who care about video calling because it
> speaks to their otherwise rather broken social skills. "Normal people look
> at each other when talking, right? Look! Using this heap of high tech makes
> me a normal person!"

That's a pretty horrible thing to say.

> Meanwhile, I note that amongst actual normal people, interest in video
> calling is low because they see it for what it is: a poor substitute for the
> real thing. Just as no normal person is into cyber dildonics.

Your personal experience is wildly different from mine. I know a ton of people
who care deeply about video calling, and most of them are not technical at
all. Parents and their adult children often use video calling to keep in touch
(no as a replacement of real world visits, but as a supplement), and pretty
much every expat or immigrant I've had extended contact with uses it to talk
to their family back home.

Just because you have a personal distaste for it, doesn't mean you have to be
mean towards everyone who does care about it.

