Google brought back Duo (kind of) because its Meet transition is so confusing

Google's plan to consolidate its communications services into Meet was (eventually) going to make things simpler and more straightforward. It was meant to bring some sense and order to a company that always exaggerated this stuff and confused it - to a really impressive degree. Earlier this month, the company rebranded its Duo video chat app as Meet and brought Meet's features. This left the original, phased out Meet app with a new "Meat (original)" name. It also made for an all-time great title.

But apparently, not all customers are happy with the Duo's sudden identity change. With the latest update to the Meet app for Android, Google has brought back the original Duo icon and name as a separate shortcut that appears in the app launcher. Tapping on Duo opens Google Meet. So now you have two ways to access the same application.

Google told 9to5Google and Droid Life that it deliberately took the move so that users could launch Meet by searching for "Duo," as they did before rebranding it. But the fact that it was necessary again points to a company that has lost the thread on the strategy surrounding these services.

Duo shortcuts can be helpful in easing the transition, but it also opens the door to more confusion — especially when Google itself is asking everyone to "see the Meet name and icon as their one app for video calling and meeting". saying. is asking. It's not like that now, is it? We are back to two icons and two names of the same app. And if you open the multitasking view after launching Meet via the Duo shortcut, you'll see a Duo icon like the one above:

Great job, everyone. No note. Someday after all this we'll end up with just Messages, Google Chat and Google Meet - sadly without the clean, simple FaceTime alternative that Duo once was - but the road there is proving to be quite complicated.

I'm really glad it's Friday.