Google launches Allo messaging app to take on WhatsApp

News, Technology

Google announced its Duo video calling app and Allo chat app at its I/O developer conference back in May this year. Last month, the company officially launched Duo, which shortly crossed 10 million downloads in just a month. Following up, Google has now officially launched Allo for everyone.

For those unaware, Allo is a standalone messaging app that comes with a built-in search engine. It has Google Assistant integration and uses the phone number as primary user identification method. Users can also link their Google account to the app.

Allo comes with numerous emojis and custom stickers catering to different users based on their region. One of the important features is the aforementioned built-in search, which allows users to initiate Google searches by just typing @google followed by the search query. This means that users don’t have to leave the chat window for searching information relevant to the current conversation.

Google Allo comes with some interesting features and is likely to give competition to the likes of WhatsApp and Hike. However, the app lacks features like document sharing and calling, which are there in WhatsApp.
In related news, Google is rumoured to be planning on introducing audio calling support in Duo app. According to Google’s product lead of communication, Amit Fulay, the voice calling feature is “coming soon” to Duo video calling app. The news came via Fulay’s Google+ post where he replied to a user asking about “Any way to make it audio only call? Need is with roaming data.
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