Google Allo – A Review

Google Allo

Say hello to Allo, the new AI based chatting app by Google, which is finally available to all Android & iOS users. Announced at Google I/O this May, Google Duo (the video chat app) and Google Allo (the chat service) have become hot topics for discussions in the past few months. Duo was released a few weeks back and took no time at all in grabbing the top spot in Play Store. Now it’s time for Allo. We played around with the app for sometime to see how it holds up to heavy use by college students.

For more on Google Duo, read Google Duo – A Review.

What’s New This Time?

We have seen Google trying its best to dominate the Instant Messaging market with products like Talk, Buzz, Hangouts, Google+, Messenger and so on. They all arrived with a bang, became our essentials for a moment in time, and then turned into apps which we just couldn’t wait to get rid of from our phones. So why should we use Allo now? What’s different this time around?

The answer? It’s smart.

 

Let’s be frank, Google knows us better than we know ourselves. Be it our emails, the YouTube videos we watch, or our search history. And that information about us is how Google aims to make our conversations better. Google Assistant, the AI based bot, introduces the full arsenal of Google in the privacy of your chats.

  • Google Assistant

Everyone with a smartphone knows the power of Google Now (Android), Siri (iOS) or Cortana (Windows). All these assistants simplify our life by handling our emails, flights, reminders, alarms and so many more tasks.

The Preview Edition of Google Assistant does the same inside Allo. If you are chatting with a person who has Allo installed, Google Assistant would be present in your conversation. And believe me when I say, it can do wonders. All you have to do is type ‘@google’ followed by your query, and Google will follow.

Google Assistant in Allo Chats

Google Assistant is also available separately, like your personal assistant. This is just like your Google Search, but a lot more personalized. You can tell it your favorite stuff and it’ll remember. You can ask for your emails, flights, trips, alarms, or know about the weather, news in any part of the world.

main-qimg-453ff287617083c85365c819aacfc976-c

Allo is sweet enough to send me daily news & weather info along with a fact every morning:

google_allo_assistant

Google can be your companion if you are a #foreveralone kinda person and don’t have many people to chat with. Tell Google you’re bored and you might receive a funny joke or a funny video or some random stuff. Moreover, you can play quite a few games too with the Assistant, don’t miss that.

  • Smart Replies

As the name suggests, Smart Reply will suggest optimal responses for you. When your friend asks you a question, replies like “Yes”, “No”, “I don’t know” automatically pop up, and you don’t have to type. The more you use the app, the more it learns your style and the more personalized the suggestions become.

Smart Reply Feature in Google Allo

This technique works even for images. You can add a caption to an image and Google will put up suggested replies for that. We know! That is really smart.

  • Whisper Shout

There are times when you are extremely angry or extremely excited. But the normal messages might not convey the expressions. And that’s what this feature does, add intensity to your words. The Whisper/Shout feature allows you to increase or decrease text size as per your mood.

screenshot_20161006-162325

Type the text, hold down the ‘Send button’ and drag your finger upward or downward to shout or whisper.

  • Doodles, Captions & Stickers

No matter how bad an artist you are, doodling is something you can’t resist in Snapchat. Forget Snapchat now, image sharing in Allo allows you to doodle as well as add captions to them.

Doodles & Captions

There’s one thing I absolutely love about Facebook’s Messenger. It has stickers! They make conversations lively and interesting. Now, Allo has them too, there are more than two dozen sticker packs in the app, some are available by default while the rest can be added. My personal favorite is the ‘Adarsh World’, make sure to check that out!

  • Incognito Mode

Security and privacy have become one of the most pressing issues in communication technologies today. While Google did promise end-to-end encryption on the messages at I/O 16, Allo couldn’t deliver that by default.

screenshot_20161006-162215

Google needs to know you better for improved results which is why all the normal messages are being analyzed for some time. You can use Allo’s incognito mode feature to get end-to-end encryption.

 

Will this beat WhatsApp?

You have already seen what all Google has already tried in its desperate attempt to keep up with Facebook, and how all of them failed by default. Hangouts was an app that could have done wonders, but its grave was dug the moment Google started ignoring Hangouts and pushing the failed Google+ upon its users instead.

Allo is new, and it is smart. But it will take more than a smart assistant to get users to install another chatting app which still lacks features like sending an SMS or making calls. There is no web client and multi-device support as of now which is another point to consider.

Although I did wish unsuccessfully for an Allo-Duo integration, Google has managed to make a solid all-in-one IM app. But not everyone likes trying out new stuff, some people are content with what they have. And if all your contacts are not on Allo, you’ll have to keep shifting from one app to another. The assistant and smart reply surely look promising at the moment, but they lack functionality and clarity which might take away from the charm after a while.

 

Final Verdict

I had been waiting for Allo for quite some time before its launch, and in the past weeks, it has seldom disappointed me. It informed me when to carry an umbrella, it played tic-tac-toe with me, it entertained me during my boring lectures but that’s not the point.

It is missing features and contains a few bugs, the reason behind Google Assistant prudently displaying a ‘Preview Edition’ message in the app. But it is definitely very helpful for students who spend lots of time sharing info and media or making plans about Saturday nights.

I’d suggest you give Allo a spin, but don’t bid your farewell to WhatsApp just yet. WhatsApp is definitely challenged by Allo, but the Facebook-owned service has over a billion users. So it will be a while and many updates before Allo can make a dent in WhatsApp’s absolute lead.

Leave a Reply

Proudly powered by WordPress | Theme: Baskerville 2 by Anders Noren.

Up ↑