Google Duo was unveiled at Google I/O earlier this year and became available for download this week (at least in some regions), on both Android and iOS. For readers who may be wondering, Duo is a new video-calling application poised to replace Google Hangouts on Android devices, along with its “Allo” counterpart – another Google app revealed at Google I/O, which focuses on text messaging. As mentioned above, Duo was released this week and brings video calling to smartphone users, but interestingly enough and according to Amit Fulay – Product Lead for Communications at Google – the application will eventually be updated to support voice calling as well.
Following the app’s release earlier this week, Amit Fulay posted a link to the Google Duo application on his official Google+ page, and evidently, numerous Google+ users have taken the opportunity to ask certain questions about the app and its features. When asked if there’s a way to allow the app to support voice calls only, Amit Furay replied “coming soon”, suggesting that the application will be updated in the future to support voice calling without live video feed. Of course, “coming soon” is a vague timeframe and thus, there’s no telling when exactly Duo will support voice calls. But ultimately, the application was primarily designed for video calls so it may take a while before Google will shed more light on its plans to add voice calling options within the application. In any case, the addition of voice calling could be useful for smartphone users whose carriers don’t support Wi-Fi calling, but again, as yet there are no specific details as to how voice calling might work in Duo.
Both Google Duo and Allo are meant to become the main video calling and messaging applications for Android users who generally rely on Hangouts, but while Duo is already available for download, at the time of writing, Allo is missing from the picture. Meanwhile, Google’s plans for Hangouts have changed, and with the introduction of Duo and Allo, the company in Mountain View will repurpose Hangouts for enterprise use, seeing how the application is already tied in with numerous Google apps and services, including Google Calendar, Gmail, Drive, and so on. It’s also worth noting that Hangouts On Air will be phased out from Google+ and instead the feature will be accommodated by YouTube Live.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIeMysX76pM