Google has discontinued Allo and requested its users to move on to Google Messages https://messages.google.com/ on December 7, 2018.
Google introduced Allo in September of 2016 and for me it feels like more of a fancy project than a serious competition to
Facebook's Whatsapp. I didn't want to make a deep technical comparison. But would like to just look at two of them from
user's point of view.
First things first, Whatsapp was first of its kind app with its first release in 2009 and the techies of the time made a fast rate of adoption of it, which also might have accelerated the common-user adoption of Whatsapp at the time. This was around the time there was a hype in sales of smartphones in most developing countries. And you know most people if they get something working, then they don't usually care about anything else. They are going to stick with it for the rest of the life. I am talking about common people who have less or no interest in exploring new technology. So they got their smartphones and heard of Whatsapp and installed it and that's it no stimuli and flashy ads displaying revolutionary technology in messaging applications didn't stop them from using Whatsapp and guess what, its more tricky. The more user base they got over years, the more the ones who already had joined needed to stay. Or put in better words you can always ask for anyone's whatsapp number confidently without asking them first whether they have whatsapp. Its like asking people to "Google" stuff without needing explain what Google is. Whatsapp has more or less become a defacto standard in Messaging applications.
When you got to sell something you have to first make people believe they need it. This is the part Google might be missing in the equation for Allo. Allo brings you the virtual assistant and all those flashy AI stuff into your messaging environment. But who really needs all these stuff when you just need to message your friends yourself. You don't need to have an AI to do it, right? Well its bound to change, What if you can ask your messenger to book a room in a hotel or book an appointment with Doctor or such common things? It's going to happen soon. Allo doesn't have it yet but they might bring these kind of things soon. When these things are brought to common market and it becomes a too obvious thing, that's when those "sticky people" might switch to something like Allo as their primary messaging application.
Let's just go through those features Allo has over Whatsapp. Stickers, self-destructive messages, Smart Reply, Virtual Assistant and an Incognito chat. Stickers are pretty fun just to be creative and to speak louder. Self-destructive messages, well hmm yeah it sounds like some CIA stuff, but yeah its here available for you on Allo. Smart replies are close to those scenarios. There are times all you have answer are Thank you, Great, Wonderful and all such single word complementaries. Smart reply lets you do it with just a touch and no typing. Virtual Assistant lets you plan things with your friends and do a lot more things, I am still testing it myself. And Incognito chat, I dont know why they are giving an explicit option to make your chats secure, i mean why can't they make it secure by default.
So that's about it, the features. The main lacking in Allo might be Calls. Yeah those Whatsapp calls, you don't get it in Allo. But Google has balanced this with Allo's partner app Duo for video and audio calling.
For the technical side, as a rule of thumb you can say that Whatsapp is more secure. When it comes to encryption the truth is you should always prefer the time tested ones over the brand new one and Allo also doesn't by default give you end-to-end encryption.
How would I conclude this? Don't ditch Whatsapp yet for Allo. Allo is not yet ready to be you primary messenger. But its great for exploration of the new possibilites and get a glimpse of what the future of messaging will be.
