We’ve been waiting for the Google Duo and Allo ever since they were announced a few months ago at the Google I/O 2016. We knew then it would be more of a video calling app, separate from Hangouts. It’s for the mobile users who want to video chat instead of just type a message. Before the release, we learned it might be set as default on Android 7.0 Nougat.
The Duo video calling app rolled out earlier this week for both Android and iOS not only in the United States but in all countries. In fact, after only a few days of release, it’s now the No. 1 app in the Play Store as reported by Justine Uberti, Google Principal Engineer who was technical lead for Duo and co-leader for Allo.
Duo is now available worldwide for both iOS and Android in the Top Free Charts section–ranking ahead of Facebook Messenger, Pokemon GO, Facebook, Snapchat, YouTube Music, and Instagram. More people are expected to download the app over the weekend and especially since after we learned that the Duo app will soon support audio-only calls.
The last bit of news is exciting because we have another option for making free calls. There’s no need for those videos when you only want to make quick calls for free. No need to use up your current cellular limit because Duo allows free audio calls between two persons.
Download Google Duo from the Google Play Store
VIA: Twitter
Legit Question: Why is anyone excited about using this when Hangouts already lets you video chat AND im AND sms AND has a browser version AND integrates with project Fi?
Seems like a step backward to me.