The video call revolution is dead
theverge.com
theverge.com
- you have to pick a number of tiles to fit on the screen, it cannot deduce the right number automatically
- the selection for this is buried in an options dialogue
- there is no facility to hide participants that don't have video from the tile grid, wasting screen space with useless squares containing an enlarged initial
- there is no way to flip to a second page of tiles if there are too many people to fit on the screen together, you just get a random sampling of call members
- there is apparently no way to drag to resize the space dedicated to the screen sharing display versus the video tiles
There are also other ridiculous limitations and rough edges, like the chat box silently truncating messages at about 500 characters.
It is as if nobody who works on the product is forced to use the thing.
Google specializes in starting projects, not refining or maintaining them as part of some strategic vision. Expect to see Meet in the Google Graveyard in a few years when some enterprising L4 decides he needs a promotion and creates Google Meetings (not to be confused with Meet).
Or Meet (original) https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/google-meet-original/id1013231...
in 2019, google announced gsuite hangouts users would be migrated to google chat and google meet (that's meet original) and consumer hangouts would be discontinued. in 2020 for obvious reasons the original hangouts cancellation and the other hangouts cancellation were both cancelled. eventually google launched google chat (for consumers) and google meet, and finally discontinued the last consumer hangouts. at this point i think all users of all of google's hangoutses have been migrated to one of the google chats or meets, or back to the google voice app (for voice customers). but if you're still using meet original you're supposed to migrate to meet (originally duo).
It kind of makes sense, as long as you don't care about your customers.
Looking at the faces of people, yeah, maybe for casual chat before the call starts but then it's useless and very few people ever complained if someone turns the webcam off.
It only seems to be missing from the software I'm forced to work with. Though I am allowed to use slack I think, will have to try that out.
This is virtually everyone I know my age irl in California.
For reference: I’m ~30.
Edit: Oops, you added your age! Apparently it's not generational hah!
An audio call is much more convenient in my experience.
Edit: I could be your father but I did my share of video calls when they were a novelty and I was about your age. They didn't stick. They got interesting again only when we couldn't see our friends during the covid lockdown.
…Actually the whole “commitment to the call” aspect is probably the biggest reason why we all do this, and why I default to videocalls. It’s OK to answer with your screen off, or pocket your phone mid call, but I can also judge the other’s ability to chat based on the video feed.
Its like in the standoff over remote vs in-office everything got frozen in place.
I wonder if improving webcams came on laptop manufacturers' roadmaps when video-conferencing became a big thing (i.e. because of COVID-WfH), for years they seemed to be mostly a "add the cheapest webcam and tick a box in the features list" item.
I suspect that much of the use for work was using pre-pandemic, or hardware purchased at the beginning of the pandemic. It takes years for a hardware update wave to soak in to the general user base.
iOS phone-as-camera is exceptionally good, but if you need your phone during a meeting, that’s not so great.
Which kinda confirms the point doesn't it? Even the iPhone company failed to put a decent camera into their 4000$+ laptops. It's utterly baffling how awful the 16" M1 camera is in comparison to even cheap Logitech external ones.
- there is almost no need for video, in the sense of looking at someone face;
- we need audio (there since the telephone invention BTW);
- we need ability to share AND PARTIALLY CONTROL (part of) the screen, so we need mechanisms to quickly allow selecting partial controls availability to third party (witch is very hard to get, especially across different platforms);
- we might need to be able sharing paper, meaning documents where someone who do not have an expensive digital whiteboard solution need to write down something because it's quick and simple than try doing the some with some apps and available input devices;
- quick file sharing with many points on how in term of privacy and data leaks risks.
Apart from the audio, most of the rest if it's here it's just partial and/or buggy...
I've already seen curious things of people with a clipboard manager sharing screens AND their clipboard with third parties, with "interesting" data in it, forget do lock file sharing abilities and so on. A tech savvy user rarely do such mistakes but most users do them regularly and for a real remote work model all such things must be there and in good shape.
It feels like the least simple solution to video calling.
I like the camera feed because I can see the person and their emotions, inflections and other mannerisms.
Some AI Borg mashup that averages every face is not going to get that for me.
If you are using it to replace a phone call, then yes. It is just another way to pickup a phone.
On the other hand, I've worked with teams that use video as a virtual team room where a small team (3 to 5 developers) hangs out most of the time just like they would in a physical team room. They tend to mob or pair program most of the time. Sub groups break out occasionally if they need to work on something in parallel. Business owners just "drop in" to ask questions or provide feedback. Other teams that need to coordinate just jump into the room instead of trying to setup meetings.
Not every one wants to work like that, but video can provide a way of enabling highly collaborative environments that typically would only happen by giving the team their own room and requiring everyone to come into the office.
It’s not a “dead” revolution if you won the war just because you’re no longer churning out shiny new weapons every day. There was victory, and now the market & society is consolidating the territory.
In the context of the pandemic, that was all it was ever meant to be, and anyone asserting otherwise (Eg zoom) was just trying to sell you something.
1. ML algorithm to make me look like I'm looking straight at the camera/you. Solutions are coming, but I bet there's an uncanny valley aspect. It shouldn't look like I'm staring at you constantly.
2. Better document/whiteboard collaboration. It should function the way it does when in a room together: everyone sees the document easily and clearly; gesture at a part of the document; highlight/focus the part you're editing, etc. Actually, a lot of that could be better than in-person.
I don't need reaction animations and other features-in-searh-of-a-use-case.
(I can't do this, but I say relatively easy in the sense that you're already doing the CV and adjustment all the time, so it's just an adaptation to turning it off or doing it slightly differently sometimes based on aspects of the CV.)
Personally though I just plan to print a widget to fix my webcam to my microphone stand, so it's at a more eye-level height and moves in and out of the way with the mic.
That's the uncanny valley I mentioned above.
I just tested, and if you look just a little to the left, right, or above the camera, the effect goes away -- smoothly apparently (I was creating the effect for someone else, not seeing it myself)
I'm not suggesting being on call 24/7 is good or healthy, but video calls are just not as easy. I don't want fast and cheap but I do want easy.
Sometimes a dedicated monitor set back on your desk with a web cam low above the screen can help give more of a "looking in in the eyes" feel.
One example. Deaf people use Instagram to group-chat with each other in Signed Language. I myself sometimes "phone" using WhatsApp and Signal.