Video Calls Are The New Battleground For Major Players
Just four days after its release, the new Google Duo App astounded Net watchers by overtaking the fairly recent releases, Pokemon Go and Facetime Messenger, to top the ‘Free Downloads for Android’ chart.
This new video calling App is reasonably similar in functionality to Apple’s Facetime and does the key things that Skype and Facebook Messenger do, apart from the group video chats, but of course, Google also provides a solution for that.
In which case, why release Duo alongside Hangouts? The answer may lie in its simplicity.
Being cut down to the fundamental features, it is extremely simple to set up and use, unlike its older brother. What’s more, it does not demand that the users at both ends have Google account.
It has another key advantage over its rivals.
This is a feature it calls Knock Knock.
This gives a sneak video preview of the person at the other end before the call is answered, pretty handy if time is tight and it happens to be a pal who does not know how to keep it quick.
What is really likely to appeal to the mass market, though, is that Duo will work on iPhones as well as Androids.
Unlike Facetime, which works for Apple to Apple calls only, anyone with Duo can make a call between iOS and Android devices.
Perhaps even more remarkable than its chart-topping performance in the Android world, is that it has already broken into the top 30 of Free Apple App Downloads.
So video calls have become a new battleground between the four major players, but who will have the biggest hit by Christmas?
