If I understand this correctly none of these 4 products will allow you to send text based messages to another person on a desktop computer without having to create an entreprise hangout. Is that not a use case worth caring about anymore? You can’t even chat with someone else from Google’s own Chrome OS.
The latest on Messages, Allo, Duo and Hangouts
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Re: The latest on Messages, Allo, Duo and Hangouts
#32What gets me about the entire Google messaging ecosystem is how they manage to be so bad. My messaging system of choice is Signal, and it looks to be about three or four full time people that work on that. It manages to handle SMS, Grop Chat, Video Chat, and End to End encrypted chat for me. I imagine there are more Vice Presidents assigned to Allo then there are employees at Signal, and signal manages to out compete them.
Re: The latest on Messages, Allo, Duo and Hangouts
#33Re: The latest on Messages, Allo, Duo and Hangouts
#34I'm pretty sure this blog post was forced due to the recent articles about Hangouts and Allo on 9to5google.com [0], [1].
Thinking that Messages, which uses SMS and RCS were available, would have any impact on messaging is wishful thinking at best. Where I live almost nobody uses SMS for person to person conversations, it's mainly used for package notifications, 2FA codes, and so on. RCS isn't available as far as I know, and I wouldn't want to use a mobile only protocol controlled by the carriers anyway. It's strange that Google, a company that seems to have a phobia of native apps and wants everything done in the browser, would push for this kind of solution.
If Google had used some of their highly payed top tier engineers and at least one competent product manager to develop Hangouts instead of pushing out the mobile only, seemingly India focused, Allo they might have had a chance. Imagine being the person in a family or group of friends that convinced people to switch to Allo, you would look like a fool by now.
[0] https://9to5google.com/2018/12/02/google-hangouts-shutting-d...
[1] https://9to5google.com/2018/12/05/google-allo-shutting-down/
Re: The latest on Messages, Allo, Duo and Hangouts
#351. What is the difference between Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet? Why are they separate products? 2. What is the difference between Duo and Hangouts?
I can answer #1:
Hangouts Chat is a standalone, text chat-only app (chat.google.com), similar in functionality to Slack. It will/does have the ability for third-party developers to create bots, etc.
Hangouts Meet is a pared down video calling interface that is geared specifically for "one person presenting to others" type of communications. Both of these (according to this blog) will only be available to G Suite (enterprise) users.
Why they are separate products? Who knows.
Re: The latest on Messages, Allo, Duo and Hangouts
#361. What is the difference between Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet? Why are they separate products? 2. What is the difference between Duo and Hangouts?
1. Hangouts Chat is a text chat app more like slack then anything. Meet is video conferencing like Zoom or Webex.
2. Duo is a video calling app like Facetime or Skype.
Re: The latest on Messages, Allo, Duo and Hangouts
#37If I understand this correctly none of these 4 products will allow you to send text based messages to another person on a desktop computer without having to create an entreprise hangout. Is that not a use case worth caring about anymore? You can’t even chat with someone else from Google’s own Chrome OS.
Yes and no. You can use their Messages web client, but it's still going to be SMS to and from your phone. It's a contrived and pretty ugly solution IMO.
Re: The latest on Messages, Allo, Duo and Hangouts
#38Google is discountinuing Allo next year. I have never been affected by one of these decisions by Google since I try to stay away from their ecosystem, but I am confident this is a way to lose user trust.
Re: The latest on Messages, Allo, Duo and Hangouts
#39The text of the blog post is very confusing at best. I consistently got the feeling we have no idea how to do messaging, and we are throwing many things to see which one sticks. In other words, the blog post felt like it was a post about telling how we have no idea what we are doing using some thousand words. Messages app is very primitive. I like hangouts way more. I can hop from text message to video chat with fami…
> blog post is very confusing at best
Yeah, there's clarity at the end, but there could have been a cartoon in 4 frames:
Frame 1: icons of Allo, Duo, Hangouts, Messaging
Frame 2: Hangouts splits into Meet and Chat (5 things)
Frame 3: Duo, Messaging, Meet annd Chat arranged in a 2x2 grid of (messaging, phone/video) x (consumer, business), with Allo still hanging above
Frame 4: Allo getting squeezed into Messaging.
Re: The latest on Messages, Allo, Duo and Hangouts
#40The text of the blog post is very confusing at best. I consistently got the feeling we have no idea how to do messaging, and we are throwing many things to see which one sticks. In other words, the blog post felt like it was a post about telling how we have no idea what we are doing using some thousand words. Messages app is very primitive. I like hangouts way more. I can hop from text message to video chat with fami…
Same. I adore hangouts, ugly and 'outdated' as it is. With Fi/Voice, it integrates perfectly as to call or text from any internet device. And who cares about wifi calling or volte support when with hangouts, everything is over data always and more reliable. Killing it is a mistake. It's the only Google product I'd gladly pay a monthly fee to use...