Google's New Video-Calling App Lets You Easily Call Between iPhone and Android

Now you can make video calls from your phone to your friends and family, regardless of whether they have an Android or iPhone and without having to go through a complicated signup process.

Google on Tuesday released its "Duo" smartphone app, a dumbed-down video-calling app that simplifies the process and is an attempt by Google to compete with face-to-face calling apps such as Apple's FaceTime and Microsoft's Skype.

Patch downloaded the app Tuesday, and the setup couldn't be easier.

Once you download the app, you give it your phone number and authenticate it through a code sent to you by text message. From there, you import your contacts and can begin calling right away. The person on the other end of your call just has to have the app, too, but it isn't restricted to one type of phone.

There's no registering for a profile or creating an account like you have to do with Skype, currently the most popular option for video-calling between operating systems such as iOS and Android.

"Video calling is the next best thing to being with someone in person, but too often it can be a frustrating or complicated experience," Google's principal software engineer Justin Uberti wrote in a blog post. "You shouldn’t have to worry about whether your call will connect, or if your friend is using the same type of device as you are. It’s no wonder that nearly half of us never make video calls on mobile."

The app will change the quality of the call based on your internet connection and will switch between Wi-Fi and cellular data to keep the connection going. (There's a setting in the app to limit this so it doesn't eat up your data plan.)

The app also has a feature called "Knock Knock," which gives you a live look at the person on the other end before you answer, so you know what they're up to or why they're calling before you take their call.

If you're reading this on your phone, click here to try out the app on Android, and click here to try it out on an iPhone.

You can read Google's full blog post here.

Image: Google CEO Sundar Pichai via Maurizio Pesce, Flickr, used under Creative Commons