We aren't at the point yet where every Android phone is able to transcribe voice calls in real time, but what Google is doing with its video chat service Duo is a good first step: the app is now enabling captions for recorded voice and video messages.

The feature was announced today from the Made by Google Twitter account.

We earlier reported that software leaks blogger Jane Manchun Wong uncovered a toggle for "Captions for messages" back in late February which would give Google permission to collect users' audio content for post-process transcription. It looks like the other shoe has dropped.

To be clear, this is different from the Live Captions feature Google has made available to Pixel phones where transcription appears for practically any spoken word on the device (not to mention similar real-time caption features for devices from other OEMs). And it's not Live Transcribe which is able to take dictation from speakers not on the device. A company spokesperson also clarified that captions are available on both Android and iOS versions of Duo.

It's a good measure for accessibility and we'd generally like to see more of this, every tech company in the world. Thanks.

Google Duo - High Quality Video Calls
Google Duo - High Quality Video Calls
Price: Free