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Google Allo – First Impression

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Re: Google Allo – First Impression

#11

Post by BinaryIdiot »

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 friction. Gave up. The AI is okay but didn't seem much better than, say, Google Now. So I didn't really understand why I would even use it.

Dou is kinda the same way and I really wish they would have combined them. You could even let the AI work in the video mode and if it overheats something it can add information.

Re: Google Allo – First Impression

#12

Post by alttab »

hbosch wrote: post #7
hackaflocka wrote: post #4

If there are any Googlers on here reading this, some free unsolicited advice from me to you: GMail is awesome. It made email 10 times better and easier (for me anyways) to use. Here's an idea: GText. Despite all the products that have come out, we still refer to texting as, well, texting. So, mail:GMail::text:GText. Here's my problem with Apple's iMessages: they take up all this space on my phone. And when I change p…

You're in luck! There is a little-known product made by Google called Hangouts[0]. It is cross platform: iOS, Android, Web, and has native apps for Windows and macOS. It stores your texts in the cloud forever, lets you send emojis and images, files, lets you video chat from any platform to any platform, and every single person with a gmail account already has it! Bonus: on Android phones it can also send SMS and MMS,…

Plus for the most part if people are still on gChat it uses that.

I have no idea why the cool parts of allo aren't just a feature of chats in Hangouts.

Re: Google Allo – First Impression

#13

Post by cylo »

hackaflocka wrote: post #4

If there are any Googlers on here reading this, some free unsolicited advice from me to you: GMail is awesome. It made email 10 times better and easier (for me anyways) to use. Here's an idea: GText. Despite all the products that have come out, we still refer to texting as, well, texting. So, mail:GMail::text:GText. Here's my problem with Apple's iMessages: they take up all this space on my phone. And when I change p…

Everything you just described is a complete privacy nightmare.

Re: Google Allo – First Impression

#14

Post by chrishynes »

hbosch wrote: post #7
hackaflocka wrote: post #4

If there are any Googlers on here reading this, some free unsolicited advice from me to you: GMail is awesome. It made email 10 times better and easier (for me anyways) to use. Here's an idea: GText. Despite all the products that have come out, we still refer to texting as, well, texting. So, mail:GMail::text:GText. Here's my problem with Apple's iMessages: they take up all this space on my phone. And when I change p…

You're in luck! There is a little-known product made by Google called Hangouts[0]. It is cross platform: iOS, Android, Web, and has native apps for Windows and macOS. It stores your texts in the cloud forever, lets you send emojis and images, files, lets you video chat from any platform to any platform, and every single person with a gmail account already has it! Bonus: on Android phones it can also send SMS and MMS,…

I use and love Hangouts for this exact reason. I haven't found anything that can do the IM+Voice+SMS combo crossplatform.

I don't get why Google isn't pressing Hangouts hard vs. letting it languish. It really should be a core product that ties everything together. Unified contacts, instant communications of all varieties, whether SMS, IM, voice, video...

Since it hasn't got an update in forever, the UI is crappy, and they've turned off all API access and denied people writing third party clients.

I now wish there was an alternative, but I haven't found anything that does it all.

Why, Google, Why!?!?

Re: Google Allo – First Impression

#15

Post by threeseed »

hackaflocka wrote: post #4

If there are any Googlers on here reading this, some free unsolicited advice from me to you: GMail is awesome. It made email 10 times better and easier (for me anyways) to use. Here's an idea: GText. Despite all the products that have come out, we still refer to texting as, well, texting. So, mail:GMail::text:GText. Here's my problem with Apple's iMessages: they take up all this space on my phone. And when I change p…

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.

Re: Google Allo – First Impression

#16

Post by hackaflocka »

cylo wrote: post #13
hackaflocka wrote: post #4

If there are any Googlers on here reading this, some free unsolicited advice from me to you: GMail is awesome. It made email 10 times better and easier (for me anyways) to use. Here's an idea: GText. Despite all the products that have come out, we still refer to texting as, well, texting. So, mail:GMail::text:GText. Here's my problem with Apple's iMessages: they take up all this space on my phone. And when I change p…

Everything you just described is a complete privacy nightmare.

At this stage, I've given up caring about my privacy :-)

Re: Google Allo – First Impression

#17

Post by lewisl9029 »

hbosch wrote: post #7
hackaflocka wrote: post #4

If there are any Googlers on here reading this, some free unsolicited advice from me to you: GMail is awesome. It made email 10 times better and easier (for me anyways) to use. Here's an idea: GText. Despite all the products that have come out, we still refer to texting as, well, texting. So, mail:GMail::text:GText. Here's my problem with Apple's iMessages: they take up all this space on my phone. And when I change p…

You're in luck! There is a little-known product made by Google called Hangouts[0]. It is cross platform: iOS, Android, Web, and has native apps for Windows and macOS. It stores your texts in the cloud forever, lets you send emojis and images, files, lets you video chat from any platform to any platform, and every single person with a gmail account already has it! Bonus: on Android phones it can also send SMS and MMS,…

> It stores your texts in the cloud forever

It does? Are we talking about SMS here? Last time I checked Hangouts certainly did not sync SMS messages. A real shame because I miss that functionality sorely when switching between devices.

Re: Google Allo – First Impression

#18

Post by beefsack »

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

Re: Google Allo – First Impression

#19

Post by modeless »

lewisl9029 wrote: post #17
hbosch wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're in luck! There is a little-known product made by Google called Hangouts[0]. It is cross platform: iOS, Android, Web, and has native apps for Windows and macOS. It stores your texts in the cloud forever, lets you send emojis and images, files, lets you video chat from any platform to any platform, and every single person with a gmail account already has it! Bonus: on Android phones it can also send SMS and MMS,…

> It stores your texts in the cloud forever It does? Are we talking about SMS here? Last time I checked Hangouts certainly did not sync SMS messages. A real shame because I miss that functionality sorely when switching between devices.

It does if you use Google Voice or Google Fi.
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