Google to reduce video quality on Hangouts

NEW DELHI: The ongoing coronavirus pandemic is forcing people to stay at home, work from home and even take classes from home. In order to work smoothly and to study both professionals and students are using Google’s Meet service. However, the tech giant is trying everything to manage the surge in traffic. Now Google has rolled out an update for its Hangouts app on iOS with a warning.
With the latest update, the tech giant issued a warning that the video quality might get reduced. Only enterprise customers have the ability to start a new meeting while any user with a free Google Account can join a Meet call. On the other hand, classic Hangouts are available to all regular users.
The release notes for Hangouts 3.0 reads, “Video Quality may now decrease if the server load increases.” On desktop, users are allowed to adjust the video quality as per their need but this is not the case with mobile apps. In apps, all the changes and adjustments are made and handled in the background.
Recently, Google announced that it has rebranded its communication tool Google Hangouts. The company has now named it Google Meet, as it calls it in a blogpost where it highlights it’d security features.
Although the post nowhere announces this renaming, however, a report by Android Police claims that Google has confirmed to them that it will be retiring Hangouts Meet branding and will call it Google Meet going forward. “The rebrand will happen on a rolling basis, presumably meaning it will take time for it to disseminate globally, or to things like the Android app,” says the report.