Googleâs chat app âAlloâ was supposed to be the iMessage for Android phones, or so we all thought. After all, Google did market Allo as a great messenger application for Android devices and loaded it with a lot of features, including stickers, GIFs and after a while, even a web-client.
However, according to a report by The Verge, Google has now paused development on Allo and has transferred its engineers to the Android Messages app instead, hoping to build it out with RCS and other features to make it an actual, viable alternative to iMessage.
Itâs no secret that Allo didnât pick up in quite the way that Google hoped. Sure, it garnered some interest at launch because itâs Google, and because of all the claims that Google made about Allo being amazing, but iPhone users are happy with iMessage, and Android users have been using messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram for years â itâll take Google more than just another chat app to get Android users to its own platform, and according to Google, that thing is Android Messages, RCS included.
Google is calling the new product âChatâ, and as Android Police points out, itâs not the same as Hangouts Chat which is still a different product. Things are definitely getting confusing out there.
If youâre an Allo lover, youâll be relieved to know that Google isnât abandoning Allo either, it has simply paused development and investment in the app for now while it focuses on getting together the âChatâ app that it has thought of. I guess weâll just have to wait and see if Allo actually survives, or if it becomes yet another Google messaging app that will suffer the âHangoutsâ fate.
