Google Meet (original) Reviews

Hi. I am a student and have been using Google Meet for COVID-19 situation. It is a good app for classes and other stuff. I have been using GoogleMeetoriginal for almost 6 months after my teachers decided to use Meet instead of Zoom. I spotted some problems during my time. But this new update fixed them all. And also made more issues...😒. But I expect that Google will detect them and fix them. I personally love this new update,but it made some more problems.

1. When I press the power button I automatically leave the meeting and everything just freezes up.

2. At the older version,I used to have the previous meeting links in the main menu. But here, there is nothing.

3.when I join a meeting the sound doesn’t come from the speaker of the iPhone. Instead it comes from the little speaker which is used for normal phone calls.

4. While using eardphones...(I have apple earphones) when I press the middle button of the earphones,I get out of the call. Instead of getting out of calls,the middle button should be used to turn on/off the microphone cuz that will be super handy.

5. In this update,the place where the name of all meeting members show I can't see whose camera is on or off. And I can't pin them by easily tapping at their ID

6. The option of chat should be aside the switch camera option. (It's the finest place of I can think of)

7. Add tile view. PLEASE!!!

I hope Google sees this and makes the right changes to this useful app.

I use google meets both on my phone and on my chromebook for school. On my chromebook, it’s great; the audio is a bit choppy on occasion, but other than that it’s pretty much perfect on my chromebook. On my phone however (I have an iPhoneXR if that has anything to do with it), the screen will just randomly go black while I’m in a google meet. It doesn’t do this when I’m on any other app alone, (when you’re in a google meet you can go onto other apps and still hear the audio from the google meet while you go on whatever other apps, just like FaceTime.) but when I’m in a google meet, my screen randomly goes black for about 4-6 seconds about 4 times every 30 seconds. I can still hear the audio, and the phone doesn’t turn off because when it comes back on again it’s on the same screen it was before and I don’t have to enter my password again. While the screen is black, even if I tap on, say, a keyboard, when the screen comes back on, it didn’t/doesn’t register that I pressed any buttons. This is quite frustrating, as I am currently in a google meet and it has taken me nearly thirty minutes to write this review.

First of all: I don't know why virtual backgrounds aren't available. Why are they not available?! Please bring them back!!!!
Second: I have a suggestion. If not for the virtual backgrounds you can do something like on zoom where you can have like different meeting room templates each with a different setup and a different theme and different customizable meeting options. Like for example you could have a classroom template, and in there it could have always the raise hand feature, polls, breakout rooms, moderator has control over chat messages and students' microphones, or you could have like a hangout chat room, where there's lots of virtual backgrounds, a more interactive chat, and the option to change the screen layout. And those are just examples, the options are endless!
Please make an update soon with the changes you've decided to make, and let me know!
Thanks!

I love GoogleMeetoriginal, it’s great for online school. But recently you guys have updated the layout for mobile, and now it looks terrible. You’ve also made working GoogleMeetoriginal more difficult. Before, you could see yourself fully before joining, with the option to mute or turn your camera off, and now you’ve made the screen in which you view yourself before entering the call smaller. Now I can’t look at myself fully and adjust my appearance if need be, because I can barely see myself. Also, I now have to go through a series of steps just to pin a person, or look at the chat. And now when I’m in the chat, I can’t see the person I have pinned anymore, because the chat takes up the whole screen. Also when I accidentally leave the call, there is no longer an option to rejoin the meeting, which is very frustrating. Please fix this, I had no issue before, so I don’t know why you guys had to change it. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. You guys have completely went downhill with this layout.

I’m a high-school student doing everything virtually and sometimes i have to use the same device to use google meet and assignments. So if someone uses the chat box, I can’t see what they’re saying. I’m thinking that you can add like a notification box. Like how we get notifications for text messages and everything else. It would benefit me a lot if that was added so i don’t have to use a device to be on a google meet and another for assignments and etc. It would help if you add the notification bar to also add that we can chat back through that notification bar. I know with an iPhone you can do that, you can message someone back through the notification bar while watching something on netflix. I think this would benefit a lot of students like me on the long run. I hope you do this!!

When I found out I was upset but I just tried meet because it was a google app I loved all the google apps I used... except this one. The first time I used it was math class that failed horribly, my camera was glitching on and off and I was mute. I found out how to use it the next day with help from my sis. So I was doing some work and the teacher was like make sure camera is on. So I was like ok and me and my teacher was the only one who’s camera was on but that wasn’t the problem THEIR CAMERA WAS ON I just couldn’t see it until they speak. Which was very annoying especially if someone was participating and I couldn’t see the teacher. Also I couldn’t use tiles like I can with zoom unless I’m on a computer. GoogleMeetoriginal was very disappointing I liked zoom better. My sis uses zoom. GoogleMeetoriginal does not deserve 4.2, 3.2 at the best I don’t understand why the DOE decided to use meet. I don’t recommend GoogleMeetoriginal unless it is mandatory for school

THIS IS SO ANNOYING. PLUS I hate that I cannot monitor the chat box directly from the meet and I now have to navigate to it by clicking “In call messages.”

Before the update, I was easily able to broadcast while in split screen mode which is perfect for teaching in the virtual classroom. But now, the broadcast gets interrupted whenever I try to enable split screen mode.

This concern was also brought up in Meet support in this comment by R. Souza which got upvoted 28 times:
“ Since the last iPadOS update 14.0.1, I am not allowed to split screen and show 2 apps at same time while broadcasting on Google Meet. It interrupts the screen broadcasting / recording and says that multitasking is resizing GoogleMeetoriginal 's windows.
I teach art and drawing classes online through Meet and I used show the presentation and draw with Procreate at same time. It was very handful, and now I can only show one app at a time. “

Additionally, the chat box was a part of the old default screen, but now I need to navigate to it by clicking “In call messages” and it has become very challenging to actively monitor the chat box during my live lessons.

I absolutely love all of the features of Google Meet, but if you could update the IPad version to include broadcasting while in split screen, and/or include a default view that seamlessly includes the in call messages, I would give GoogleMeetoriginal 5 stars.

I find myself using Google meets a lot and I would definitely rate it five stars because it is so awesome and I really like it and I’m glad that you can screen share and I also am so glad that when you leave thatWeb browser or page you your video turns off and I am so glad for that there are a few things I would like for you to improve and that is probably more than 250 people because what if someone finds their self with 500 people and they can’t have all 250 people and two I think that there should be more options than just chatting pinning and all of that stuff because it may just be fun to do more stuff on there so that is my review and that is it thank you

As a high school student, I use Google Meet for about 8 hours a day. When I use my chrome book, you are able to see everybody on your screen, however, when I use my Ipad or Iphone, you can only see about 4 people. It makes it a bit hard because since I take ASL, you don’t know who is signing or what is being signed. They should change it to where we can see everybody. Also, when I use the chat box it pops up in the middle of the screen. I think they should change the chat box to going to the side instead of the middle like the chrome book because I still need to see what my teachers and peers are saying. Hopefully, they are able to change it. Also, I’m glad they put the “activities” feature because every time my teachers put a poll up I was never able to vote.

I use Google meets to hang out and call with some school friends, there’s some times when I wish a friend would mute, or I have to check up on how I sound in the middle of a call, or when I leave and my friends leave the call as well even though I wanted to come back.

So #1 thing I wish was added was some sort of muting option for the meeting, what I’m saying is I can mute the meeting or a person. I have this one friend and for some reason he loves to leave his mic on, sometimes I wish I could just mute him so I could watch a video in peace. I wish there was a button on mobile for muting a person.
Second thing I want is a “trouble shoot” (I believe it’s called) so when I’m in the middle of a meeting and I wanna check up on how I sound, I could do a quick trouble shoot and have no one else hear me.
Last thing I would like is some sort of thing to be able to join the call later, even with no one else there to confirm your join. Sort of like a “come back later” button and you can just click it to join back in.
That’s it, I hope one of these things happen because I’m sure they’d help me and a lot of people using meets.

As a elementary student I use GoogleMeetoriginal a lot for my meetings, yes work could be done but it’s really easy to use. There is a raise hand feature and even being able to change your background! The raise hand is my favorite as it means you don’t have to have your hand up for hours it feels and your teacher doesn’t even notice. Also, A lifesaver that it’s on iPhone as my computer died and I have a meet at 2:30! (It’s 2:22 right now while I am writing this. Anyways, I write actual truthful reviews and I just really love GoogleMeetoriginal as it is easy to use and it doesn’t take someone from college to know how to use it.

I recently switched from a laptop to an iPad for school and I am really disappointed with GoogleMeetoriginal. Online, features such as polling, q&a, etc. are available, while on mobile there is no mention of these. What should a student do if a teacher expects them to respond using one of those features? Secondly, when the chat comes up it blocks the entire screen. There is no way to be able to ask questions while paying attention in class because, as I said earlier, the chat screen blocks everything. It would be better to have the chat on the side (For my purposes I wouldn’t mind it being permanently open, but I think it’s best to make it minimizable). Lastly, when I tried to submit this feedback GoogleMeetoriginal crashed (this happened five times) so I had to resort to leaving a review and hoping the developers saw it. If they do, I hope that they change these things soon. Thank you!

GoogleMeetoriginal is probably the worst app on planet earth. You do NOT have the tile grid or the icons. It is very glitchy and crashes during my school calls at least 3 times a call. I have trouble unmuting and muting myself. 99% of the time my camera doesn’t work even if I turn it on and off AND ON AGAIN!!!! Every time when I enter a call I have no audio. My teacher and classmates ALWAYS GET RANDOMLY KICKED OFF THE CALL!!!! The picture is always blurry and SOMETIMES is BLACK. I can only see 3 people. The chat only lets you type 10 sentences (witch isn’t that big off a deal but still) It crashes after to many people come on the call. THE CODES AND LINKS DON’T WORK MOST OF THE TIME!!!!!!! To NOT get all these problems my parents had to BUY me a chrome book cause not A SINGLE ONE of these bugs are on a chrome book, lab top, or computer. I DO NOT RECOMMEND GoogleMeetoriginal if there was a 0 star that’s what I would rate it. Btw zoom is WAYYY BETTER THAN GoogleMeetoriginal!!!!!!!!

SCREAMING and SHOUTING - please bring back old UI!

NEW UI is terrible:
- InVideo Calls it is not possible to see In-call messages window without obstructing video/shared screen content!
- mute/hang buttons re-arranged and made it worse!
-InVideo calls you can not see participant list without obstructing video/shared content!!
- no possibility to arrange different layouts to see either one main participant/shared screen or mosaic with multiple faces.

This is similar r$$ish layout like the one that comes from Mail App, when call is initiated from Mail App.
So it was tested on the Mail app but instead of recognising shortcomings and making improvement it was rolled-out to sand-alone app - WORST decision ever!
NOT user friendly at all.
Developers decided to use some “out of the box” functionality which is not helpful but went ahead anyway. For example - in-chat messages open new window that obstructs everything, instead of developing a side-partial window that allows to see messages alongside the Video/Shared screens.

I’m advanced user with 30+ years of IT experience. Mostly working in software project environments with high level of collaboration where conferencing is essential. I know what I’m writing and understand the mistakes that have been made implementing new LESS-user-friendly layout compared to previous one.

Best luck!
K.

I am a student who is required to use GoogleMeetoriginal by my school. It’s so irritating that we don’t have control over such a simple function. You know how in the browser version, you can just mute the tab? We need something like that for GoogleMeetoriginal . My phone is my primary device for work since I no longer have a working computer. When I am required to watch a video for class or I wanna listen to music during independent working time, I cannot because I'm forced to listen key clicking and static from teachers who have unmuted mics. I am also forced to be listening to teacher-student conversations that do not involve me. I really do NOT care, and that extra noise hinders my work progress! And of course the only way to shut the call’s volume off is to mute my phone completely, thus taking away my ability to watch educational videos or listen to music. Please fix that. Thank you.

Google meets is a great app but you should be able to mute the meet. I know you can mute yourself but if you could mute the meet so you can’t hear what they’re saying. It would make it easier for students to watch videos without being distracted by the in person class. Like if someone would have to watch the video, but the teacher is talking, you would have to listen to the teacher and the video at the same time and it’s confusing. But if you were able to mute the meet then you could watch the video without the background noise and then when your done you can unmute it. Except for that fact it’s an amazing app and it’s really useful.

It does it’s job when used for personal calls, like friend to friend, and can handle a good amount of people in calls. The problem is that schools are trying to use GoogleMeetoriginal as an alternative to Zoom, when they have just as easy if not even easier access to Zoom than GoogleMeetoriginal, and Zoom is much more stable. It seems every class period I have with the teacher that uses GoogleMeetoriginal, it crashes at least once, and we all have to scramble to get back into the call and resume, not once have I had yet to have this problem with Zoom. Meet simply can’t handle a classroom amount of people. If you’re a teacher or anyone in the education board, STICK TO ZOOM. It simply saves everyone time and effort. Other than that, decent app to use for personal purposes.

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Meet is a good app to use for meetings. But theres a problem where the new updates are just soooooooooooo hard to get used to. Like for example, the latest update had changed some features of GoogleMeetoriginal and supports night mode, but the problem is that if you are a teacher, and if you need to go and check the chat log, you have go back and forth( meaning go back to the screen and go back to the chat log and it goes on).
Before you can open the chat log and then present the screen. But now, its so difficult that some schools has changed apps by going from meet to zoom. Please fix😾

GoogleMeetoriginal is extremely useful especially with the times we’re in and how schools use them. I have GoogleMeetoriginal on my iPad Pro, and apple has a feature where you can have to apps open at once to multitask. However, when I do this my camera turns off and says it can only be on when it has the whole screen... which makes no sense. Then when I leave GoogleMeetoriginal as a whole, without multitasking, it also turns the camera off and doesn’t bring it with me to the home menu or anything. I believe these are small things that can bring GoogleMeetoriginal to be something capable of competing with zoom or those other big known platforms when it comes to convenience.

Dear everyone throwing a hissy fit because they don’t want to learn a new app. Deal with it.

Honestly GoogleMeetoriginal is way better then the old hangouts! Seem less integration with google cal and the ability to create a link for next weeks meeting so everyone has it when the time comes is the best!

Google just keep doing what your doing. I’m sure that in 10 years when you make a new change everyone will be mad because the love hangouts meet.

We use Hangouts Meet a lot for team calls. Typically it works great. I recently tried it on iPhone 5 and it installed fine but would not launch. Have latest supported updates (IOS 10.3.3), tried restarting the phone Still does not launch. Not sure what else to do. Wish Google would fix the issue.

Any time someone says your name in a meeting, the mute button is hidden. So you tap or double tap the screen and the mute button MIGHT show, but then when you try to hit the button, it'll disappear again just before you hit it. When you finally get the thing unmuted, the conversation has moved on, or they've given up that you're going to respond.

This has been the main problem with every google video app. Why do you hide the button? That is such a horrible user experience.

Almost everything about GoogleMeetoriginal works really well. Joining a scheduled meeting is effortless.

Only one complaint, and it’s a fairly big one. It’s necessary to mute and unmute the mic when participating in a multi-way meeting. But that’s harder than it needs to be because the UI hides the mute button. This wastes time for my colleagues and me: we’re always waiting for somebody to find the unmute button.

Please consider making that button stay put, at least during sessions with lots of participants, or with telephone participants.

Good stuff, thanks.

Overall happy Hangouts user. Sure would be nice to be able to paste a number into Hangouts dialpad. iPhone X, iOS 13.1.2. Even better if numbers in iPhone screens were hotlinked to use Hangouts as an option.

All I want to do is mute the speaker volume to zero using the iOS volume controls.

Instead, Why did you waste your time to add another piece of software to recreate a mute button that either doesn’t work or is too confusing or buggy to make it work?

Keeps asking for feedback at end of every meeting.

Finally GoogleMeetoriginal is working fine and request to keep it this way.

GoogleMeetoriginal is very helpful. It makes the professional organized and reliable keeps my staff happy and no confusion

Works beautifully. You can now present from your phone and mute !

Maybe instead of trying to manipulate elections, google would devote more resources to fixing it so they can spy more efficiently. It keeps fading out after 2-3 seconds then nothing for 40 seconds at a time. I’d rather not use this.

GoogleMeetoriginal takes control of the system audio, if your listening to something on headphones before opening it, Watchout!

Thanks google, had to drop for 2 min to update my app which worked fine

There is some sort of odd glitch with GoogleMeetoriginal & Bluetooth connections. If using bt with Apple’s new H1 the audio gets SUPER choppy. All other bt connections work ok. Super annoying.

No complaints.

Very frustrating because somehow GoogleMeetoriginal is broken on my iPad but not for my iPhone