Google is finally removing one of the stranger limitations around Meet on the iPhone. Yesterday, the company announced that iOS users can now join Google Meet calls directly from Safari without installing the Meet or Gmail app first. If someone taps a meeting link on an iPhone and doesn’t have either app installed, they’ll be taken into the browser-based experience instead.

That sounds obvious, but it wasn’t how Meet worked until now.

Google has supported browser-based meeting access on desktop for years, but the iPhone experience has been different. A user receiving a Meet link might end up staring at an app requirement before they can even join the call, which feels unnecessarily restrictive for something that is fundamentally just a video meeting.

Here’s a screenshot we captured showing what it looked like when you opened a Google Meet link in Safari before this new change:

Tapping the ‘Open’ button on the page would either take you to the App Store if you didn’t have Meet (or Gmail) installed, or it would open up the Meet app (or Gmail) if you did. So once the freshly added Safari support rolls out to all users in the coming days, this headache will be gone.

But it’s not just that. Google is also removing another hurdle from the experience.

People who aren’t signed into a Google account can enter their name and request access to a meeting. That makes Meet a lot friendlier for guests, contractors, interview candidates, clients, or anyone else who may only need to join a call once and has no reason to install another app.

You can watch the short animation they shared showing the new flow in action.

Of course, Meet wasn’t exactly broken on iOS before this. Plenty of people already had Gmail or Meet installed. Still, there was always a disconnect between Google’s browser-first philosophy and the fact that iPhone users needed an app just to enter a call.

Google says the feature is rolling out to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains beginning June 23. The rollout may take more than 15 days to reach all users. Workspace customers and personal Google account holders will both get access once it arrives.

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