Google Meet is the company’s poster child during this work-from-home-because-of-the-pandemic season. Their efforts to bring the service to the forefront has been a mixed bag for users but Google is hoping that the latest ones will be a hit rather than a miss. They’re updating the Meet for Android app to bring a more updated user interface to match the look and feel of the experience that you get with Meet in the Gmail app. Plus, students and teachers get more useful features if they’re on the G Suite for Education tier.
Google has been pushing Meet to the forefront of its recently rebranded productivity suite (now called Workspace) as more people need to keep in touch with colleagues, family members, friends, etc during this time when meeting together in person is not always possible or encouraged. We’ve seen a Meet tab roll out in Gmail for Android which some saw as unnecessary but has supposedly increased visibility and usage for Meet.
They also introduced a user interface for the mobile app to match that of the Gmail experience but it was only available for iOS. Now finally we’re getting this revamped UI and the first noticeable thing is that it uses the blue color scheme rather than the green one which was initially associated with Hangouts and eventually Meet. There is also now a Quick Launch Summary which shows all your scheduled meetings plus the New Meeting button which will give you three options:
* Get meeting joining info to share with others.
* Start a Meet call instantly.
* Schedule a new meeting in Google Calendar.
Those who are using G Suite for Education will also be able to enjoy Meet features like Jamboard, a digital whiteboard to make lessons more interactive. There are also now Breakout Rooms for those who want to create smaller, simultaneous discussion groups. They will also soon launch a new Q&A feature that will let students ask and upvote questions to the teacher without disrupting the flow of the ongoing discussion. There are also now Polling features that teachers can use to get instant feedback from students.
The updated UI of Meet for Android should be available now for all users. The new Meet features discussed earlier are only available for G Suite for Education users.
