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Because Hangouts is a bloated POS? Everyone I know who works for Google states this (and I can concur from using it at work).
How on earth is hangouts "bloated"? It's a friggin IM app with video calling built in. It's far more minimal than most other "alternative" IM clients.
From those gifs in the post, I assume it requires Google to scan every word I send. It will sense my tone to change the text style, and suggest how I should response. Well, why don't you just say it for me then? I'd love to see a bot representing me talks to my friends. And, a messaging app provides Incognito mode, lol, is there any other way to imply my conversation isn't private enough?
Beside the limbo that this leaves Hangouts in, Allo and Duo have no web/desktop client, which is where I do 90% of my messaging. I've made too many excuses and put up with half-assed experiences for the past 5-10 years. Unfortunately, my options are probably Facebook messaging or raw SMS.
Meanwhile Riot/Matrix have all of the functionality of Slack/Skype/Hangouts/etc, is open source, is federated, etc... and no one seems to care...
(Not to mention that I still can't even download Allo if I try...)
I wonder if they are doing this because they expect issues or if they expect everyone to want the app. Personally, I just wish the stock Android messenger could communicate better with imessage group chats.
I'm surprised Google Duo hasn't become more popular. It's a great cross-platform video chat app. I especially like the feature where you can see the other party before you answer their call. I have taken calls because of that feature that I otherwise wouldn't have. It's better than FaceTime because it works on Android. It's better than Skype and Google Hangouts because your cellphone number is your identity; you don'…
Phone numbers are much harder to change , so if some annoying person gets a hold of it suddenly they can harass me across networks. This is a thing that actually happens! A big reason why I don't like telegram (even if everything else is awesome).
I'm cool with my account being linked to a phone number, but I'd rather avoid giving the phone number to people I want to talk to (instead handing out a network-specific username)
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it's not always-on end-to-end encryption because the standout feature is the google assistant. literally the whole selling point of the app is that google is always listening in. If you want google's assistant to not be continually monitoring your conversations, then allo is definitely not the app for you.
Exactly, it's the usual trade-off: convenience vs. privacy. I much prefer the latter, though.
So. Why make this a separate app? Why isn't this in Hangouts?
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I give it 2 years. Maybe only 18 months. I don't even know how many different (and confusing!) chat applications Google has launched already. Seems like their engineers, when they get bored, write a chat app.
Next time I see someone mention how great their monolithic repository is I'll ask how many chat applications you have to checkout before you can code at google.
My impression is that the monolithic repository only works because Google's built a bunch of custom tooling to support it. It doesn't mean any company can just roll all of their code into a single Git repository and call it a day.
Besides, if I take up Allo and fall in love with it, I’ll be sad when it disappears after Google stops supporting it in a few years. These features should be integrated into Hangouts, else they’re dividing their own market. Though, ironically, if everyone with this sentiment went against their gut reaction and adopted Allo anyway, then Google would be forced to support it, as they do Gmail.