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Google Allo – First Impression

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Re: Google Allo – First Impression

#31

Post by hyptos »

IanCal wrote: post #30
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #11

Trying to chat with others I find difficult. Other services that use your number will attempt to tell others you're trying to send them a message if they're not signed up yet. Allo? Not so much. In fact many of my techie friends, two of which worked at Google, are not even on it and it doesn't work with any of Google's existing chat apps. So I have to go out of my way to try to get friends on it. Nope. Too much frict…

> Other services that use your number will attempt to tell others you're trying to send them a message if they're not signed up yet. Allo? Not so much. Doesn't it send them a text with a link to get allo? I'm certain it sent my wife a text like this.

yep it does that why I instantly uninstalled !

Re: Google Allo – First Impression

#32

Post by wanda »

I wasn't impressed until I messaged Google Assistant a photo of my tabby cat (no text, just the photo), to which the assistant responded with search suggestions about tabby cats. While not breaking new ground by any means (I mean this and more have been done before), it's very cool to have it in my pocket, as it were, and I'm going to keep Allo installed for now just to see where the Google Assistant goes.

Really wish I could handle SMS messaging from within Allo so I wouldn't have to switch between apps to talk to people. It's bad enough that my colleagues use WhatsApp and two groups of my friends use Slack and Facebook Messenger, respectively.

I really don't understand Duo though. It's a nice little app and also nice to have a cross-platform alternative to FaceTime (which I've never used precisely because the majority of my friends do not use Apple devices) but Hangouts did video already, why not just rebuild Hangouts from scratch as Duo and Allo in one app?

Yes, I realise this is the question that has been on everyone's lips and has been asked many times before and after the launch of these apps. I've still yet to see a sensible answer though.

Re: Google Allo – First Impression

#33

Post by jrv »

Veratyr wrote: post #22
beefsack wrote: post #18

The more proprietary chat platforms that arise, the more I want to see Matrix[1] / Riot[2] succeed. Communication networks should not be corporate controlled walled gardens. [1]: https://matrix.org [2]: https://matrix.org/docs/projects/client/riot-ios.html https://matrix.org/docs/projects/client/riot-android.html

I'm just waiting for Matrix to get E2E going... For now, XMPP works well enough.

E2E is already activated in Riot web and will come to mobile in a month or so (at least according to what Matthew said in the Matrix room on Matrix).

Re: Google Allo – First Impression

#34

Post by Twisell »

hackaflocka wrote: post #28
threeseed wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what's going on with your use of the iPhone. Every iPhone user has an iCloud account which almost all are backing up to right now. So when you change phone you just need to do a Restore from iCloud and all of your messages will just be there. I would consider it pretty idiot proof.

For starters, iCloud has a 5GB limit (free tier). And that limit has been used up by lots of other things in addition to iMessages. iCloud backups are also known to fail. Someone I know just can't get the backup to work on their iPhone.

Most of the drawbacks of iCloud have been totally overcome years ago, and 5Gb is totally sufficient since only personal data is backed up, media file (music,video,Apps) are not.

Go to the next Apple Store and enjoy a free unlimited in time support for theses issues.

Every time I came by a Genius Bar for support I have witness "dumbs" users crying tears of joy after an epic data recovery thanks to the dumb-proof iCloud backup (and that exactly why both my parents are backed up on iCloud, for some people "dumb-proofness" is more important than privacy concerns)

Re: Google Allo – First Impression

#35

Post by amelius »

beefsack wrote: post #18

The more proprietary chat platforms that arise, the more I want to see Matrix[1] / Riot[2] succeed. Communication networks should not be corporate controlled walled gardens. [1]: https://matrix.org [2]: https://matrix.org/docs/projects/client/riot-ios.html https://matrix.org/docs/projects/client/riot-android.html

I'm surprised that email is not corporate controlled yet.

What did email do right that chat did wrong? Afaik, there was once a good standard for chat.

Re: Google Allo – First Impression

#36

Post by gambiting »

Seeing as Hangouts is becoming worse and worse and worse(recent update removed tabs on the bottom of the screen, now it's all in a single window - and I get notifications in the corner of the screen with the full content of each message - really awkward if I'm in a meeting. In the old version, a tab would light up green and that was it. But the absolute worst offence is that there is no way to go back to the old interface - google took the executive decision to break it for everyone, so they did, I'm really pissed off about it), I would really like to switch to a different IM. Allo would be nice, if not for the fact that it doesn't have a desktop client. That's unacceptable.

Re: Google Allo – First Impression

#37

Post by LeoPanthera »

amelius wrote: post #35
beefsack wrote: post #18

The more proprietary chat platforms that arise, the more I want to see Matrix[1] / Riot[2] succeed. Communication networks should not be corporate controlled walled gardens. [1]: https://matrix.org [2]: https://matrix.org/docs/projects/client/riot-ios.html https://matrix.org/docs/projects/client/riot-android.html

I'm surprised that email is not corporate controlled yet. What did email do right that chat did wrong? Afaik, there was once a good standard for chat.

> I'm surprised that email is not corporate controlled yet.

With the vast majority of email users using a tiny number of email providers, it effectively is. If Gmail decides that your personal mail server is sending spam, it becomes effectively useless.

Re: Google Allo – First Impression

#38

Post by JshWright »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #37
amelius wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised that email is not corporate controlled yet. What did email do right that chat did wrong? Afaik, there was once a good standard for chat.

> I'm surprised that email is not corporate controlled yet. With the vast majority of email users using a tiny number of email providers, it effectively is. If Gmail decides that your personal mail server is sending spam, it becomes effectively useless.

Yeah, but there is no denying that email "federation" works very well (which makes sense, and it was pretty much the only major design goal). The lack of easy federation is why there are millions of chat 'bubbles' out there.

Re: Google Allo – First Impression

#39

Post by pritambarhate »

From the article:

> It’s like the early days of the iPhone – the skeuomorphism design helped users get accustomed to use it, through the icons that imitated physical objects. Once they got educated, more than 8 years latter, the flat design was introduced.

Does anybody have a link for an official proclamation from Apple confirming this? To me it felt like an effort to bring something new and exciting as skeuomorphism was getting boring after 6 revisions of the of the OS. I dread that day, but I think in a few years, skeuomorphism will come back, once some high profile designers will get bored with minimalistic flat design and will proclaim how "amazing" skeuomorphism is.

Re: Google Allo – First Impression

#40

Post by BinaryIdiot »

IanCal wrote: post #30
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #11

Trying to chat with others I find difficult. Other services that use your number will attempt to tell others you're trying to send them a message if they're not signed up yet. Allo? Not so much. In fact many of my techie friends, two of which worked at Google, are not even on it and it doesn't work with any of Google's existing chat apps. So I have to go out of my way to try to get friends on it. Nope. Too much frict…

> Other services that use your number will attempt to tell others you're trying to send them a message if they're not signed up yet. Allo? Not so much. Doesn't it send them a text with a link to get allo? I'm certain it sent my wife a text like this.

Oh. Two of my friends said they got nothing so I assumed it did not. Now I don't know what happened there. Honestly I'm torn, too, as that seems like it would be necessary but also annoying. Sigh.
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