Google‘s track record of launching and shutting down services is well known, and now it looks like another app is headed for the graveyard. The new victim is Google Meet (original), which has been removed from the Play Store as part of Google’s efforts to streamline its video conferencing offerings.
In April 2020, Google rebranded Hangouts Meet as simply “Meet.” A few years later, in 2022, the company merged Google Duo with Google Meet due to Duo’s larger user base in an effort to streamline its video chat services. However, to avoid confusion between the two Meet apps, Google labeled the former Hangouts Meet as “Meet (Original)” and changed its icon to green.
However, having two Google Meet apps didn’t make sense, and the company began notifying users of the “Meet (Original)” app to uninstall it and switch to the rebranded Meet Duo app. Now, almost 18 months later, Google is officially discontinuing the Meet (Original) app, merging everything and leaving only one version of Meet on the Play Store.
When two meet, one must go
As first spotted by 9to5Google, the Meet (Original) app has officially stopped working and is now prompting users to download the new version of the app. A pop-up in the old app prompts users to download the new version of Meet, highlighting improved features such as reactions and the ability to call other Meet users directly. While the Play Store listing for Meet (Original) remains available, the app itself is no longer working, as we confirmed on our own devices.
The phasing out of the original Meet app is a logical step for Google as the company continues to focus on developing and improving a new, more widely used version of Meet. The rebranded Duo app, Google Meet, has more than 5 billion downloads on the Play Store and is where Google is adding new features. Redirecting users to this app is in line with Google’s goal of unifying its video services into a single, feature-rich platform.
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