Google Brings the Services of Duo into Its Meet App but It Is Still Confusing

Active users of the Duo app already know that the company decided to rebrand the service as Meet and bring Meet’s features to it. It seems that Google tries its best to bring all the different communication-related services into Meet, but it’s not always working out as expected. What is interesting is that the old Meet app is currently still available, and there is now also the Meet (Original) service offered to users.

The rebranding of Duo left a lot of active users quite confused. The most recent update of the Android version of Meet also brought back the initial Duo icon and a separate shortcut that you can see when you open the launcher. The most unusual thing about this update is that when you tap to open Duo, this action will open Google Meet. In such a way, users can now access the same application by tapping on two different icons in the app launcher.

According to Google, this is not a bug, and it is something that was made intentionally. Now when users that are unaware of the update look for Duo, they will be able to access Meet. It is difficult to say whether this was a necessary decision, but it seems a bit too much. Having the shortcut of Duo is supposed to make things a bit easier for users who are just adjusting but having two names and icons for a single application doesn’t sound like the best move.

Delivering a clean and user-friendly interface has always been quite an issue for Google. The company seems to overcomplicate things, and this most recent situation is a prime example of that. It’s likely that they will remove the unnecessary icon soon, but for now, users get them all.

What do you think about this transition? Do you use the features offered by these services? Please, share your thoughts in the comment section below!