Coming later this summer, Google just announced a new video calling app at I/O 2016 called Duo.
The concept is simple. When you open the app, the first thing you see is a live feed of yourself. Then, tap on one of your friends represented below your feed, and the call will start. Duo focuses on one-to-one calls, rather than group calls or video conferencing.
That’s it. The app is simple, easy to use, and apparently only has a footprint of about five megabytes. But there are a few features that help make Duo stand out from other video calling apps.
Features of Duo
First, it’s blazingly fast. There’s an Android-only feature called Knock Knock. This allows you to see a live preview of the person that is calling you, even before you accept the call. It’s a sneak peek so you can share the live moment as fast as possible.
Second, there are under-the-hood tweaks that allow Duo to dynamically adjust the video and audio quality based on the strength of your connection. Duo can also seamlessly switch from Wi-Fi to cellular and back without dropping the call.
Amit Fulay, group product manager of communications products at Google told The Verge:
“Our team’s motto when we started the project was: performance is the feature, video is the UI.”
The app is a nice companion to Allo, a messaging app that we mentioned here. Like Allo, Duo will be available for Android and iOS.
