
Allo, Google's new messaging app - heyheyhey
http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/18/11699122/google-allo-messaging-app-announced-io-2016
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ethanbond
> you might think is meant to replace Google's other messaging app, Hangouts.
> But you'd be wrong.

Oh thank goodness! I'm so happy to have another vaguely defined and
horrifically executed messaging/chat/collaboration/VTC/whatever app from
Google. This will simplify things.

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eganist
Remember back when every app used a common protocol, or when one app unified
multiple protocols?

Those were the days, right?

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izolate
Unfortunately tied to your phone number. I realise this is what makes WhatsApp
popular, but it's a UX nightmare for travelers/multinationals.

I'm currently doing without WhatsApp because I have no way to activate it on
my replacement phone (dropped original one) - the SIM tied to my WhatsApp
account doesn't work overseas and I'm using a local SIM.

It's a frustrating, confusing experience. What's wrong with tying this to your
Google account?

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mikek
This is meant to be a WhatsApp competitor.

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wlesieutre
As opposed to Hangouts, their existing chat system for sending and receiving
text/images/video between phones on multiple networks and operating systems.
That's obviously in a different market.

The fragmentation of chat systems is already crazy, and now Google needs to
have _two_?

My prediction: Allo runs for two years then gets a half-hearted merge into the
Hangouts client, bringing over a couple of major features but not the ones
that made people actually prefer it as a chat client.

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notduncansmith
So Google is trying to collect the data necessary to impersonate the text-
conversational style of anybody who uses their new app. Interesting.

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allenleein
Google is doing another mistake....

