Gmail mobile app will soon allow you to make voice and video calls

[jsilva]

Forward-looking: To create a better hybrid work setting, Google is updating Workspace apps with a slew of features. One of the highlights of this update is video and voice calling contacts through the Gmail mobile app and Google Meet, allowing users to do the equivalent of a "spontaneous hallway conversation" in a hybrid work environment.

The Gmail mobile app will be the first to receive the feature, with Google Meet following soon after. Once the apps are updated, you'll receive a notification when someone calls you, as well as a "call chip" on your computer, allowing you to choose where to answer the call.

Google Workspace is also getting a redesigned interface for Gmail, turning it into a communication hub for work. As part of the makeover, Google is also introducing Spaces as a "central place for team collaboration in Workspace," which should now be available for all users.

As promised, Google will deeply integrate Spaces with other Workspace tools, such as Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Meet, and Tasks. Spaces will offer threads to separate chatting subjects, searchable spaces for members to access, and enhanced security and admin features to configure permissions.

Google Calendar is also receiving an important update that lets users set their location during a given workday. Moreover, Google Meet will get a Companion mode in November so users can leverage audiovisual hardware and live-translate captions from English to French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese, with more to come.

To prepare for the launch of Companion Mode on Google Meet, the company is also expanding the Google Meet hardware portfolio with two new all-in-one (AIO) video conferencing devices. The first is the Series One Desk 27, a 27-inch AIO device suitable for home and office use. The other is the Series One Board 65, a 65-inch 4K device that can be used with an optional stand to turn "any room or space into a video collaboration hub in minutes."

Google also announced third-party devices certified for Google-Meet use, including the Logitech Rally Bar and Rally Bar Mini, complete room solutions for small and mid-sized rooms, and the Rayz Rally Pro mobile speaker dock.

Google's decision to upgrade Gmail to a communication hub looks good and practical, but what will happen to the remaining Google communication apps? If you have an app that does it all, there's no need to have or use multiple apps to do the same.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/91156-gmail-mobile-app-soon-allow-you-make-voice.html

 

[Beerfloat]

Google’s communication strategies:
Past: Google Voice, Hangouts, Duo, Meet, YouTube Messages, Assistant Messages and Chat. I’m sure I missed a few.
Today: Gmail (because nothing makes you think of voice/video chat like an email app!)
Tomorrow: OK we really missed out on WhatsApp. Can we just buy Telegram already?

 

[Ludak021]

I don't get it. Every phone has a dialer and you can make voice calls since telephone has been invented.

 

[axiomatic13]

I don't get it. Every phone has a dialer and you can make voice calls since telephone has been invented.

They're attempting to compete with MS Outlook on the PC as it can now directly dial someone on Teams through Outlook. Peace.

 

[zulu53]

Google’s communication strategies:
Past: Google Voice, Hangouts, Duo, Meet, YouTube Messages, Assistant Messages and Chat. I’m sure I missed a few.
Today: Gmail (because nothing makes you think of voice/video chat like an email app!)
Tomorrow: OK we really missed out on WhatsApp. Can we just buy Telegram already?

If you read between the lines you will see, I think, the the name "Gmail" will soon be dropped and GWorkspace used the same Microsoft did when the turned to selling Office (the bundle) only: rather than compared to offering it as a discounted way of buying separate apps. MS initially used one UI as an avenue to the individual apps. Google are re-working the most common UI and using as an avenue to the apps. Nothing new here; just a slightly different approach.

 

[zulu53]

I don't get it. Every phone has a dialer and you can make voice calls since telephone has been invented.

But now its "unified" communication. Voice or TXT or Video - user choice. My "dialer" also offers on all of the above a choice of carrier wireless method - either wifi or cellular, so 6 options in total.

 

[zulu53]

The main issue for Google (regardless of how efficiently they package their apps or the UI to the apps) still remains Privacy of user data (and its inherent Intellectual Property). They have, up until know at least, been unconvincing with their privacy argument to business (the targeted user of the paid for WorkSpace). They still sell customized search engines that mines client data and not just the public domain data of the internet. These can be sold to mine "other" clients data.

 

[Ludak021]

I think they are trying to get people to use their already existing systems that people refuse to use. Gmail is E-mail application, anything other than text with attachments is bloatware to me (and ends up as spam).
For Calendar they have Calendar app, and so on. Do I want to call someone from Calendar app? Of course not.

To me, this move is redundant and silly.