Meet Allo and Duo, Google’s brand new text and video messaging apps. With these two apps, it’s pretty safe to say that the technology giant is taking on Apple and it’s FaceTime, and doing it totally cross-platform. With some features it’s also taking on Facebook and Snapchat! Exciting news today!
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At this year’s I/O, Google unveiled a lot of cool stuff. Among these, two brand new messaging apps: Allo for test messaging, and Duo for video messaging, both of which will be released in the summer.
Allo gives users all the features they are accustomed to – emoji for example, or stickers. It also has a Whisper feature to make text smaller or a Shout feature to make text larger by sliding up and down on the Send button.
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It comes comes preloaded with Google Assistant so that you can search for things on Google, find images and do a lot more from within the app. For example, it gives you Smart Replies – a feature that suggests replies for you. Developers can simply build support for their app directly into Allo – so a cab company could build their hailing system directly into the app for example.
Google Assistant bots also offer games and conversations with users. It’s clear that Google is taking on Facebook with this, since M is actually not available to all users yet. Some more great news is that Allo is encrypted as well, but also includes Incognito mode – just like in Google’s Chrome browser – which offers end-to-end encryption, private notifications and Snapchat-like “expiring chats”.
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On the other hand, Duo is a very fast and simple-to-use video calling app which uses your phone number like WhatsApp, and works on iOS and Android. With Duo you can do anything you are already used to in most video chats. Muting the microphone, flipping the camera, or group calling are all there. One difference is a feature only available on Android – when you receive a call, you can see the other person waiting for you to pick up. When you answer, it’s as if the call just continued. With Duo, Google is taking on Apple’s FaceTime but making it totally cross-platform.
I can’t wait to see and use both!