Google Can Be So Confusing

As you know, I am currently invested in the Apple eco-system but I still use some Google products.  For instance, my primary email is a Gmail account.  I have an iCloud email address but I never use it.

I am always looking at apps and how I can use them. Just recently I have been focused on Apple products but today I took a look at Google's offerings.  Its confusing to say the least, but there are also a lot of apps that mirror the Apple apps.

The biggest issue and largest confusion I had with the Google offering is the communication software. In the Gmail portal we have Chat, Rooms and Meet. Then there is stand alone Meet, Duo and Hangouts.

So apparently Hangouts is dead but is still there, and after some digging to see what was going on, it turns out that Duo is likely to get folded into Meet, maybe.

• Google Duo is equivalent to Apple Facetime (but rather stupidly the two can't talk to each other)
• Google Meet is the equivalent of Zoom (but again they can't speak to each other)

Apparently CHAT is just for chatting with other Google users, and ROOMs is a part of CHAT.

So, to conclude, if you have friends with a mix of Apple and Android, use WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal, all of which have text, voice and video capability, as well as groups and channels putting them on par with Discord and Slack, and of course Zoom for large video groups. 

I have all of these apps and I am so confused!