Google Duo is Google’s answer to consumer friendly video conferencing, and according to the Play Store, it’s been downloaded more than 100 million times. It’s not hard to understand why, because it offers some of the easiest, most seamless and high quality video conferencing around. Sure, there are stalwarts like Skype and Hangouts, but neither are especially consumer friendly.
Google Duo is – there’s no account to sign up for, no mucking around. All you need is a phone number (like WhatsApp I guess) and then you’re ready to Duo with anyone else who’s installed the app. Earlier this year when at MWC 2017, I used Duo morning and night to talk to my partner and kids and it never missed a beat, even over unreliable WiFi connections.
The problem, though, is that Duo has only worked on phones. You couldn’t (and today can’t) use it on tablets, either on iPads or Android tablets, or things that are like tablets such as Chromebooks. Apparently, and according to Duo developer Justin Uberti, change is coming:
Stay tuned…
— Justin Uberti (@juberti) December 22, 2017
From what we understand, the process will be the same – you still sign into Duo with a mobile number, and just punch the verification SMS into your tablet instead. Then, you can use Duo on the big screen.
It’s a small change, but a welcome one. I don’t use Duo often, but when I do, I’d love to use it on a big screen instead. Let us know if you’re the same!
Yeah it’s really weird that it cannot be linked to a Google account. The use-case I have is my kids calling me from the iPad. I couldn’t get it to work so I’ve gone back to Hangouts.
Wow it didn’t support tablets this whole time? Dodgy