Google Meet High video call
Assalamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatullahi Wabarkatuhu has appeared in front of you today with an important app, Google's Meet Apps. These apps have been released in the new year through video calling.
Google Meet
is a video communication service developed by Google. It is one of two apps that constitute the new version of Google Hangouts, the other being Google Chat. Google will begin to retire the classic version of Hangouts in October 2019
Initially, a commercial service, in April 2020 Google started rolling it to free users as well, causing speculation about whether the consumer version of Google Meet would accelerate the deprecation of Google Hangouts.
History
After being invite-only and quietly releasing an iOS app in February 2017, Google formally launched Meet in March 2017 The service was unveiled as a video conferencing app for up to 30 participants, described as an enterprise-friendly version of Hangouts. At launch, it featured a web app, an Android app, and an iOS app. Features for G Suite users include:
- Up to 100 members per call for G Suite Basic users, up to 150 for G Suite Business users, and up to 250 for G Suite Enterprise users
- Ability to join meetings from the web or through the Android or iOS app
- Ability to call into meetings with a dial-in number
- Password-protected dial-in numbers for G Suite Enterprise edition users
- Integration with Google Calendar for one-click meeting calls
- Screen-sharing to present documents, spreadsheets, or presentations
- Encrypted calls between all users
- Real-time, AI-generated closed captioning
- Free users have some further limitations:
- Meetings (after September 2020) are limited to 60 minutes
- All participants must have a Google account
While Google Meet introduced the above features to upgrade the original Hangouts application, some standard Hangouts features were deprecated, including viewing attendees and chat simultaneously. The number of video feeds allowed at one time was also reduced to 8 (while up to 4 feeds can be shown in a "tiles" layout), prioritizing those attendees who most recently used their microphone. Additionally features such as the chatbox was changed to overlay the video feeds, rather than resizing the latter to fit.
Free access
In response to the COVID-19 crisis in March 2020, Google began offering Meet's advanced features that previously required an enterprise account to anyone using G Suite or G Suite for Education. The use of Meet grew by a factor of 30 between January and April of 2020, with 100 million users a day accessing Meet, compared to 200 million daily uses for Zoom as of the last week of April 2020.
Previously, a Google business or G Suite account was required to initiate and host a Meet video conference, but with increased demand for video conferencing, Google announced that free access to Meet would begin rolling out in May 2020. Google's long-term plans included making Meet available to Google account holders, but the COVID-19 crisis accelerated the process. Following the announcement, Google's Director of Product Management recommended that consumers use Meet over
Free Meet calls can only have a single host, but up to 100 participants, compared to the 250-caller limit for G Suite users and the 25-participant limit for Hangouts Unlike business calls with Meet, consumer calls are not recorded and stored and the company states that consumer data from Meet will not be used for advertisement targeting. While call data is reportedly not being used for advertising purposes, based on an analysis of Meet's privacy policy, Google reserves the right to collect data on call duration, who is participating, and participants' IP addresses.
Users need a Google account to initiate calls and like G Suite users, anyone with a Google account will be able to start a Meet call from within Gmail. Free meet calls have no time limit but will be limited to 60 minutes starting in September 2020. For security reasons, hosts can deny entry and remove users during a call. Google also plans to roll out a noise-canceling audio filter, a low-light mode, and a grid view for Meet that allows users to view up to 16 participants at once, responding to the popularity of the Zoom gallery view
Google Meet is a standards-based video conferencing application, using proprietary protocols for video, audio, and data transcoding. Google has partnered with Pexip to provide interoperability between the Google protocol and standards-based protocols to enable communications between Meet and other Video Conferencing equipment and software. Since Meet runs in Chrome or other browsers and does not require an app or plugin, it should present fewer security vulnerabilities than video conferencing services requiring a desktop app
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