With the world reeling from the Coronavirus outbreak, more people are staying home or are forced to stay indoors. And, because of this, internet usage has essentially spiked. During a time like this more people are using video-conferencing apps to either attend official meetings or even to just keep in touch with friends and family. This has opened up the market for apps like Google Meet to meet the ever-increasing demands. Google is taking the opportunity to add new features and improve Google Meet. Just as a reminder, Google Meet used to be called Google Hangouts. If you’d like to know more about why and how Google changed Hangouts into Meet, you can do so here.
Google Meet will now get Gmail integration just like Hangouts. The new integration allows users to start or join a meeting directly from the inbox. In order to start a new meeting, users can click on the ‘Start Meeting’ option. They will then get a new secure window pop up, which will feature a unique meet.google.com URL. Joining a meeting sees you put in a meeting code that will be provided by the organiser. One is a meeting is in progress, it is possible to invite more users to the meeting. Google notes that the feature is currently only available for Gmail on the web, and support for mobile will be added soon.
The app will also feature a grid-style setup much like another video conferencing app in Zoom. These changes will start rolling out today. A part of the G-Suite package, Google Meet will receive a new option to join a video conference soon. Google has not given any specific dates but according to reports, it should start rolling out next month. The Meet app will also receive the option to show 16 video streams in a similar layout to Zoom, which is to say a grid-styled layout.
Outer improvements include clearer video in low light environments and more comprehensive filtering of background noise. Users will also be able to access Google Meet from their Gmail account. The integration with Gmail has been rolled out should start rolling out today with the grid-style layout appearing later in the month.
If you’d like to know more about which video conferencing apps you could and should use during the lockdown, you can check that out here.