Recently, Google released their new messaging app called Google Allo, and people have mixed feelings about it. When you compare Allo to Hangouts, you might get disappointed about the fact that the features Google used on Allo could have been simply added to Hangouts, which many people were already using, instead of creating an entirely new app from scratch.
One example in this direction is the Google Assistant, which many people would have preferred it added to Hangouts. Other users feel that Allo suits their daily needs more than Hangouts. But let’s have a look at a brief comparison between the two.
Allo is really better than Hangouts when it comes to contacts. While Hangouts must connect to your Google account in order to work, Allo only needs your phone number. This is great since it’s an easier way of connecting to people and chat with them. While Hangouts takes contacts from your Google Mail account, Allo just takes them from your address list/phone book in your device.
On the other hand, one major drawback with Allo is the fact that it doesn’t integrate with SMS. It does send SMS messages to an user that hasn’t got the app installed, but the messages won’t appear as coming from you. Moreover, you can’t set it as the default SMS app on Android, while Hangouts integrates perfectly with SMS.
Another big problem with Allo is the fact that it only works on one platform at a time. Meanwhile, Hangouts works both on computers and on mobile devices, but since Allo doesn’t have a computer interface, this might be an issue for users. However, Google declared that it’s planning to expand Allo to PCs too in the near future. Sadly, if you start using Allo on another device, you will lose the profile picture, the name, the contacts and chats on the first device.
*a user
So why do we need Allo? Can it integrate with Google voice? Does it support MMS? To many missing features.
Quite frankly, Duo and Allo are redundant and unnecessary. I keep trying with Duo, but it does not do anything that Hangouts does, and does better. I gave up on Allo after two days – the Google Assistant is, at best, a toy, at worst, a nuisance. I have already got rid of Allo for good, and I am afraid that Duo will follow suit soon.
Hardly a comparison…
More like a poorly written piece, abruptly cut off.
I used Alo for 6 minutes and i was amazed on how poor it was. I can’t imagine that it is a replacement for Hangouts.
How is pulling contacts from your phone instead of your master contact list in any way “better”?
Hangouts on my phone integrates with contacts perfectly, but on the computer it can’t find my contacts unless they’re also on hangouts. It won’t default to SMS, either.