Google brings Meet to Gmail on mobile. What’s changing? As announced, Google is offering Meet in Gmail for mobile devices. At the beginning of July 2020, they will start this change for G Suite users by introducing a separate “Meet” tab in the mobile Gmail applications for iOS and Android. This means that users can participate in secure video conferencing directly in Gmail without opening another app on their phone.
Google Brings Meet to Gmail on mobile.
Google announced today (20/6/2020) a further integration between Gmail on mobile devices and its video conferencing service Meet. If you’re using Gmail on Android or iOS and someone sends you a link to a Meet event, you can join the meeting right from your inbox.
Of course, it’s not fundamentally different from how it works today, where Gmail takes you straight to the Meet app. The main difference, however, is that you no longer have to install the app—a dedicated meeting to take part in a Gmail call.
The second and perhaps more critical update, which will be released in a few weeks, is that the mobile Gmail app will have a new “Meet” tab at the bottom of the screen. This new tab shows all of your next meetings in Google Calendar. You can start a meeting session, get a share link, or schedule a meeting on the calendar.
If you’re not an advanced meet user, you can also turn this tab off, which many people will probably do, since not everyone wants to post the screen status in their messaging app for a dedicated meet button.
It’s interesting to see that Google tries to link Gmail and Meet so closely together. Switching between two different apps for email and meetings never seemed to be a burden, but Google clearly wants more people to meet (especially now that it offers a free tier) and removes any friction that prevents potential users could use this.
The company has already integrated Meet into the Gmail web app, where it seemed pretty natural as Gmail continued to offer support for Hangouts (RIP, I assume) and its predecessors on the web. However, this appears to be somewhat enforced on mobile devices. After all, hangouts on mobile devices have never been an integral part of Gmail.