App Developers React to New Demands 

The app market has become more reactive than ever and as such developers are having to produce and amend their offering in almost real time just to keep up. We already know that coronavirus has heavily impacted app demand and usage. Services like House Party for social and Zoom for more commercial and business use have skyrocketed in downloads and usage since lockdowns began separating teams, friends and families.

Now we are starting to see developers and the app market change to suit these new demands and needs. Home working has been the biggest and most dramatic change and companies are jumping to offer new virtual meeting and connectivity app solutions – this could serve as inspiration if you are currently weighing up how to proceed with your next app design or looking for ideas for in-demand apps. Google has already taken action on this front by changing its Google Hangouts app into two separate apps; Google Meet and Google Chat.

Microsoft has also reacted quickly. Its Microsoft Teams solution works in harmony with Office 365 and is currently used by around 44million users – again this could help you refine your app plans by potentially encouraging you to look at ways to develop a new app that integrates with an existing popular service.

Slack and other connective and file development platforms are thriving of course and even Facebook has a Workspace solution.

This just goes to show how reactive and ready to roll with the trends and the demand of the audience an app developer needs to be to ensure they stay relevant and don’t allow opportunities to pass them by.

Here’s what we know about Google’s new apps:

Google Meet

Google Meet has been created to serve as a Zoom rival. It allows group video conferencing for up to 250 participants consecutively. Previously this service was only available to those with a G-Suite account but it has now been opened up to a much wider audience. The aim of the app is to make joining virtual meetings as easy and effortless as possible.

Meet also allows for full screen presenting which makes it ideal for formal team meetings or presentations to the client. This puts it very much in the same arena as Zoom Pro. It also links into other G-Suite products including Calendar, Google Mail and various cloud services.

Google Chat

Chat is slightly different with users able to create segmented virtual rooms much like a live messaging group. It a thread like approach for participants to track a given project. The idea being that you would have a ‘room’ created for each project being worked on and participants added to that room to enable collaboration.