Of the two apps that Google introduced in 2016 as replacements for the much-loved Google Hangouts on Android devices, only Google Duo seems to have picked up the pace, currently boasting more than 100 million Play Store installs compared to Allo’s 10+ million.
Even so, Google Duo is still far from the perfect Hangouts alternative. The app, despite how simple and easy it is to use, has some behaviors that can really be annoying, especially since they can get interruptive when doing something else of more importance.
Case in point
When recording a video on your phone or maybe trying to get a quick shot of a cool moment you’ve spotted, an incoming Google Duo call will immediately take over the screen and thus render all of your efforts useless. Even canceling the call immediately won’t take you back to the viewfinder, rather, you’ll have to begin the recording process afresh. For those one-off moments, it means you miss out on everything. Now this can be annoying!
Naturally, turning on Do Not Disturb (DND) is supposed to prevent such things from occurring, but it seems Google Duo video calls are able to bypass this wall. Thus, Duo calls will still take over the screen even if DND is enabled.
Google is looking into it
DND in its current mode can only prevent sound interruptions and not visual interruptions. If anything, the issue here is about Google Duo video interruptions and apparently, the company is looking into a way of ensuring DND also works to prevent interruptions from Duo video calls.
Looking into it
— Justin Uberti (@juberti) May 15, 2018
This is according to Justin Uberti, the lead engineer of Google Duo. And while it’s good to learn that Google is looking into this matter, when exactly it will be addressed remains unknown.
