After we saw a sneak peak of Duo earlier this year, ’s straightforward, cross-platform video calling app is now ready for the masses. Duo launched on Tuesday is here to do battle with Facee Skype, giving the Mountain View behemoth a potentially stronger competitor than the woefully underperforming Hangouts.
first showed off Duo at its I/O conference in May, promising that the new app would be very simple focus more on the human element by offering you a live view of the video before answering the call, thanks to the Knock Knock feature.
The Knock Knock feature gives you a live video of the caller before you answer.
In the launch announcement, says that all calls with Duo are end-to-end encrypted. Beyond that, the app is very simple by design, without any additional connections to messaging or other services. For a deeper dive, you can check out the obligatory YouTube video with lots of happy people.
Duo is available now in the App Store ay Store.
y this matters: Hangouts has long been a mess, offering a buggy inconsistent experience for video calling messaging. Duo is the first of ’s new, well, duo of apps designed to remedy this. lo is an iMessage-style app that should also launch soon, promising to bring you cross-platform messaging bliss with the smarts of the new Assistant.
