Say hello to Google Allo: a smarter messaging app • Hacker News Board

Re: Say hello to Google Allo: a smarter messaging app

#451

Post by Sargos » Wed, Sep 21, 2016, 5:29 PM UTC

buro9 wrote: post #357

Does not seem to work with Google Apps account. Which makes the list: * Allo * Google Fi * Google Play Music Family Plan * Google Play Store Family Sharing * Google Spaces * Google Trips * YouTube Red * YouTube Music It's a growing list. I'm always amused by the "One account. All of Google" header on the login pages. Google Apps accounts do not grant access to all of Google as the products do not work for it (it's no…

All of those things are consumer services and not really marketed at businesses or education. It makes sense that they aren't available. There are a lot of edge cases and high level decisions that go into enabling a service for enterprise access.

Enabling Google Fi on Cloud: Suddenly Project Fi needs a dashboard to track all of the Fi accounts for the organization. It needs mass canceling and modification tools. It needs a dedicated support group separate from the main Fi support. Not to mention possible uptime guarantees that would likely be needed. It balloons the development significantly with no real benefit to the service itself. Also businesses aren't likely to use it.

Re: Say hello to Google Allo: a smarter messaging app

#452

Post by bstrong » Wed, Sep 21, 2016, 5:33 PM UTC

I find it interesting that people are complaining both about the lack of a web app and about Google keeping message history on their servers. I'm assuming they will eventually build a web app, but you can't build a useful one unless you have the message history on the server, encrypted in such a way that the web server can decrypt it and serve it to the browser.

Unfortunately, you really do have to choose between privacy and having a web app. I'm not sure which I value more, TBH.

Re: Say hello to Google Allo: a smarter messaging app

#453

Post by croddin » Wed, Sep 21, 2016, 5:34 PM UTC

Pxtl wrote: post #363

danohu wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Google approach would be great, if they just separated it from the Google brand. Like, when Unilever launch a new detergent, they give it a totally separate brand. If it fails, they drop it quietly, and if it succeeds they can roll it out worldwide. I wish Google would do the same. Launch this as 'allo', with the fact that it's from alphabet buried in the small print. Once it's been doing well for a couple of yea…

Exactly. Disney has Miramax for films that don't fit under the Disney brand. Toyota has the Scion brand for quirky, weird car designs. Google could have a brand for experimental apps that they're not sure about.

That's what Google Labs was. If they had kept Google Labs and released some of these products under that brand, people might not be as worried about them killing the full-fledged Google projects when experiments are ended.

Re: Say hello to Google Allo: a smarter messaging app

#454

Post by kilroy123 » Wed, Sep 21, 2016, 5:35 PM UTC

TuringNYC wrote: post #254

Not sure how common this is, but everyone at both school and work these days shifts seamlessly from mobile to dekstop and back. This has been one of the main reasons we tend to use WhatsApp and Slack, even for corporate communications as silly as that sounds -- because you can type long messages on it on the keyboard/desktop but also have access to it on the go. What I don't understand is -- given Allo had a blank sl…

I agree completely. I use google voice and also like to send text messages from my computer.

I'm sitting here all day long at work. I do not like reaching for my phone and typing long messages on there.

Re: Say hello to Google Allo: a smarter messaging app

#455

Post by yincrash » Wed, Sep 21, 2016, 5:48 PM UTC

jjcm wrote: post #104

yincrash wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without a valid macOS/iOS device key, it's not possible. The key allows your device to publish iMessage signing keys to the Apple directory service that recipient devices use to decrypt your iMessages. Without a device key, your device won't be able to do this.

Is it possible to harvest one from an old iPhone? I'd certainly buy an old iPhone that's mildly damaged if it meant I could use imessage on android.

Possibly, but it seems that the reverse engineering + the hassle of needing an Apple key has prevented any real compatible clones from being made.

Re: Say hello to Google Allo: a smarter messaging app

#456

Post by zeveb » Wed, Sep 21, 2016, 5:54 PM UTC

what_ever wrote: post #426

zeveb wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe it's just me, but I kind of find this a bit creepy. As long as the person on the other end knows that he's on-camera, I think it's NBD. The trick is ensuring that eh really does know that, and isn't picking his teeth, washing his hands &c.

Actually the person calling is on camera and the person on the receiving end sees the preview. Person on the receiving end is not on the camera until they accept the call.

That's what I meant — the caller is on-camera, the callee is not, the caller knows he's on-camera, all is well with the world.

Re: Say hello to Google Allo: a smarter messaging app

#457

Post by scottmf » Wed, Sep 21, 2016, 5:58 PM UTC

em500 wrote: post #201

dkarapetyan wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This falls in an interesting uncanny valley. If you know the person on the other end is using allo who are you really talking to? The average google bot response powered by deepmind or the actual person on the other end?

Reminds me of when Facebook got slammed about their auto-happy-birthday feature: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/29/facebook-...

That's a good comparison and I'd expect similar user backlash here.

I'm confused as to why they're choosing to lead with this feature.

Re: Say hello to Google Allo: a smarter messaging app

#458

Post by Descon » Wed, Sep 21, 2016, 5:58 PM UTC

Pxtl wrote: post #356

calinet6 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My lord, why isn't Allo just Hangouts 3? They had an established userbase, a name, a brand, and useful cross-platform tools already. I get the desire to start fresh, but that's a lot of established traction in a very crowded market to just throw away.

Exactly. Hangouts has a lot of problems - its performance doesn't impress me, and the UI is confusing in a lot of ways, and splitting SMS/Conversations is something that really disappointed me, but still - it has the full featureset. I mean obviously, it suffers from the fact that it's heavily tied to Google accounts, which isn't ideal for trying to reach outside of the Google sphere. But otherwise, it does everythin…

Not a full feature set - can't share contacts, one of the things that made me switch away

Re: Say hello to Google Allo: a smarter messaging app

#459

Post by kbenson » Wed, Sep 21, 2016, 6:03 PM UTC

lwf wrote: post #433

kbenson wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet apparently not business accounts. You can use the integrated hangouts in gmail, and the phone apps, but hangouts.google.com says it's not an enabled app for your account, and I can't seem to find where it's available to enable/add in the admin console (that is, I can find where to enable and add apps, but it isn't listed, and I'm a super admin). The Apps marketplace has third party apps, but that's not what I'm l…

I'm able to use hangouts.google.com in both my personal Google Apps domain and my work's Google Apps domain. Almost certainly a setting buried somewhere deep in the Admin Console. :(

Thanks for the heads up. Not that I know it's at least possible, I'll spend some time and did a little deeper. I'm interested in seeing how it compares to Slack (basically, how well it uses the defined groups and membership in them that are already configured).

Re: Say hello to Google Allo: a smarter messaging app

#460

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Sep 21, 2016, 6:04 PM UTC

jeppebemad wrote: post #379

janvidar wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want Facebook Messenger, and the Facebook app cannot be uninstalled on my device since it came preinstalled with the Android OS on it (HTC One - it can however be disabled). Now, if someone uses Facebook Messenger to send me a message, my Facebook app will notify me about unread messages - I've disabled most notifications, but the icon still gets a number increase indicating messages that can be read. These m…

For me at least, the messenger is still working on Facebook.com, also on messenger.com. I'm sure it does for you too?

On Chrome on Android, at least, if you don't use "Request desktop site", you can't get messages on messenger.com or facebook.com (the messages icon doesn't even show up on the latter, and the former just directs you to an app download.)

You can use "request desktop site" on messenger.com (and probably also facebook.com), or use mbasic.facebook.com to get messages without the messenger app.