

I laid it out in a broader sense back when Duo and its yet-to-launch text communication companion, Allo, were announced this spring: This is an all-too-familiar effect of Google's messy mobile messaging strategy. I don't know about you, but I can imagine getting three likely responses to that nudge:
#Who owns duo app android
So let's be real: Outside of Android enthusiasts like us who enjoy trying new technologies and exploring Google's ever-expanding app efforts, do you honestly think most people will go out of their way to download Duo just so they can talk to you on it?įor perspective, when you try to start a Duo call with someone from your phone's contacts list who isn't yet using the app, the service prompts you to "invite" them via a pre-scripted text message: And though it does its job well, it still does basically the same thing as those other services (though without many of the additional features they offer). The app is coming into an already-overcrowded environment of cross-platform video chatting contenders - including Google's own aforementioned Hangouts app, not to mention little-known titles like Facebook Messenger, Skype, and Snapchat.

#Who owns duo app install
We've been down this road before, remember? Back when Google launched Hangouts, many of us in the Android camp went through the oh-so-fun process of trying to convince our friends and family to install the app and use it - and if your friends and family are anything like mine, shifting their habits probably wasn't easy. A communication-centric service is useful only if your friends and family are also signed in And solvable of a hurdle as that may seem, I suspect it's gonna be a tough one for Duo to overcome. There's one caveat, though, and it's a big one: The person you're calling will also need to have the Duo app installed in order for anything to happen. On Android devices, the person on the other end can even see live video of you awkwardly staring at your screen before deciding if they want to answer - which is kinda neat, I guess. If you want to make a one-on-one video call to someone in your contacts list, it'll let you do it with reasonably high quality and without much trouble (provided that you have the person's number stored in your phone). "Hey! You look happy and casual!" "Hey! So do you!"īy all counts, Duo works pretty well.
