Google Phone app could be getting a FaceTime-like feature
Google Phone app could be getting a FaceTime-like feature
Google is beta testing a seamless way to switch from voice calls to video calls, right within the Phone app.
Is it Hangouts, I mean Duo, I mean Meet?
Voice, Chat, and Talk?
Wave?
Meet or Meet (original)?
No, you're thinking of Teams classic (work or school)
In before this feature is discontinued by Google.
Why bother with Google apps, since they'll just discontinue them.
Seriously. Fuck them. I want over a gazillion Google chat apps. Now I just use Beeper & Matrix.
It's honestly amazing that we had GPRS video calls in the late 2000s but still don't have them in the era of the smartphone. And a company like Google keeps reinventing messaging which was a solved problem in the early 2000s.
Google was positioned to make Hangouts the dominant messaging and video call app, then just... stopped. I'm kind of glad that's not an area dominated by Google, but I find the decision really bizarre.
It's honestly amazing that we had GPRS video calls in the late 2000s but still don't have them in the era of the smartphone
Not really.
There plenty of resources if you want to video call. WhatsApp, TG, Signal or even (lol) Skype, have videocalls.
It's just that why would you?
Most calls you definitely don't need video, and often it'd be a downright negative thing. You need to look at the screen and look presentable, as opposed to being able to do things while on the phone.
The reason videocalls aren't more popular is the same exact reason Google Glass isn't.
Well, yeah, no shit. Apps had to replace what was a native phone functionality. But it's still true we lost something. You need a data plan to make video calls while before you could have just your minutes. Of course, it's rare that someone has no data plan but still. Phone calls are still useful even if you mostly to calls via apps.
There's ViLTE to provide exactly that. I don't know of many (any) carriers that offer it, though. Maybe in some business use cases?
One reason not to use it: there's basically no encryption on any of it. Your carrier, government, and anyone who can get into the network can listen and watch along, just like they can with any voice call, unlike any modern messenger and mobile video calling apps. Hell, even Telegram has decent encryption for their video calls and they can't even encrypt their group chats.
WCDMA, (384kbps/384kbps) but yeah. The standard is still in the 3GPP spec too. Phones could be using it now if carriers and handset manufacturers (mostly crApple) just reimplemented it.
And of course it could have improved over time. I guess moving to a more versatile protocol (Internet) was inevitable.
Eh, if it's only on pixel phones, it won't be used. We need an open standard that can be used for PCs and phones alike. Telegram already has this feature for desktop/mobile/tablet and it works across OSs. Google and Apple need to catch the hell up.
Mobile networks already have a standard for video over LTE. Unfortunately, nobody seems to have bothered to implement it, at least not on the carrier side.
If you're willing to accept massive amounts of spam when the slightest level of adoption takes place, XMPP and Matrix will also work. Anything that can set up a SIP session, can arrange a video call. Hell, if you have a SIP soft phone running on your device with the port exposed (or forwarded, if you're still on IPv4, but then you also need to set up specific ports for each device), anyone can call you at <account>@<your IP address>, you don't even need a third party if you know those two bits of information!
Getting E2EE enabled will be harder. Not leaking your IP address by simply being called even more so, unless a megacorporation (like Google) or a billionaire with too much money (like Telegram) offer to pay for the bandwidth of their users.
Hangout was good.
I've always found hangouts to be rather laggy, for some reason. I don't know exactly what they did to their UX, but I think they must've blocked their animations until their network requests came through?
I don't even know what Google calling system I used last, but I don't think they need anything new. Google Duo was perfect, except for the small issue that nobody used it. Hopefully, they'll just rip the code out of Duo and stuff it into their RCS client.
I feel like I'm losing my mind - I thought the Google phone app had already had this feature for years. I could have sworn that when I tried to make a call, it offered video as well as audio. And yet it's not there now. Weird.
That's weird. Mine still does. If I click on a favorite, it pulls up their number and options to call or video.
Edit: It may be a pixel only feature going by some other posts in this thread
The Galaxy phone/contacts app literally has Google Duo/Meet/WhateverItsNameIsNow as one of the four main options, for each contact along with call, text, and info.
How can Google not figure this shit out with their endless rebrands and new product launches.
Bizarre. I'm on Pixel 6P, so it can't just be that, unless it's a feature only on later Pixels. So weird! 😀
yeah, I really don't need this in my life.
How will this affect the "carrier video calling" feature already in dialer?
Are we just using Google Meet now? Or will there be two options.
I've used carrier video calling before, the option appears when I call my wife. We both have Verizon, though, and I've never checked if I can do that with other people
But who would want to use their phone app, given privacy concerns?
https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/21/google_messages_gdpr/
I just want it to be compatible to Facetime so pressing the video call button doesn't just bug my sister to download meet
You mean Hangouts?
Oh wait no I mean Duo.
No wait I actually mean Google Meet.
Honestly don't give a damn about this because I'm not investing in yet another Google service to be killed off in 3 months to 3 years.
I'm the only Android user in my family. We use Signal for messaging and video calls. Anything Google implements is not likely to be cross platform anyway.
i love facetimes switch from phone to facetime so it would be great if meet could do the same thing
