Google’s New App Will Give Apple’s FaceTime a Run for Its Money
When you see a friend on the street, the interaction starts long before the conversation ever does. It starts with the walk towards each other, generally with lots of merriment. Today, Google is dropping a new app that aims to mimic this pre-start to a conversation.
It’s called Google Duo and it is COMING for FaceTime. Duo is pretty similar to other video calling apps, except this one starts sending a preview of what’s happening on the caller’s end of the video before the recipient even picks up the phone. We love this feature, called Knock Knock, as a really great way to gauge a caller’s mood before you even start talking. It only works for callers in your contact list and can be turned off.
The app works with your phone number, so you don’t have to add friends to a certain account to start talking — contacts will immediately import from your phone. It is also built to solve big problems from other video call providers. It is designed to seamlessly transition between Wi-Fi and cellular connections, and is even optimized to work well on slower networks. (Yay for no more of that terrible static pausing in video calls!)
However, Duo won’t be a complete replacement for all of your video calls. So far, it only works on mobile and for one-on-one conversations. Duo is free and you can download it for Android and iOS now.
Check out the whole video below.
Download Google’s new app and then let us know what you think @BritandCo!
(Photos via Google)