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Google Allo – First Impression

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Re: Google Allo – First Impression

#21

Post by MBCook »

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…

I believe it IS Google Now, I think it's been rebranded as Google Assistant. The only difference is that it's directly in your chats with other people like a third person.

Re: Google Allo – First Impression

#22

Post by Veratyr »

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.

Re: Google Allo – First Impression

#23

Post by corndoge »

guruparan18 wrote: post #20

You can ask @Google assistant to set a reminder, check your emails, draft and send email to your contacts, share your location(in group). You can summon @Google in your group chats. So far it is certainly an interesting toy.

You can also do all of these things with the Google app, with the exact same inputs. I had a full conversation with Allo that I repeated verbally after saying "Ok Google" and the results were identical.

Re: Google Allo – First Impression

#24

Post by visarga »

MBCook wrote: post #21
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…

I believe it IS Google Now, I think it's been rebranded as Google Assistant. The only difference is that it's directly in your chats with other people like a third person.

Compared to Google Now, Google Assistant is more conversational. So it basically does: commands, trivia, funny chat replies and when it doesn't know what to do, web search.

I checked and it doesn't do common sense judgements. "What is heavier, a dog or an elephant?" -> returns web search

Also, doesn't find conditional references. "What is the population of the city I am currently in?"

Re: Google Allo – First Impression

#25

Post by snuxoll »

CardenB wrote: post #9
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 can get your old texts via encrypted backup. Apple doesn't store them server side. It's not a migration issue.

It would be nice to have an option to move them between phones without relying on restoring the iTunes or iCloud backup of a previous device. I just got my new 7+ on Thursday and as with every new device I get I was keen to just start from a clean slate (my home screen on my 6+ was a mess and instead of cleaning it up I just decided it would be easier to start from square one, all my photos were already on my iCloud photo library and all my music on Apple Music) - annoyingly enough while a large chunk of my core experience was migrated over messages were not.

Now, considering iMessage uses E2E encryption and they don't store any of this data outside of your iCloud backup I'm not shocked, but considering I already get notified that iMessage was set up on another device and the public key is sent to Apple so new messages can be encrypted with it I don't see why my existing device couldn't just "catch-up" the new one like Skype used to do before they moved message history server-side.

Re: Google Allo – First Impression

#26

Post by visarga »

mtthwmtthw wrote: post #6

The assistant piece of Allo is not too bad at all for a first drop. I noticed that it handled context decently between users who invoked the assistant in their chats. If you ask about a type of takeout in a specific place, and then the other party in the chat says "what about another type" without referring to the place, it handles the situation. However, if the first person says something right after the results are…

> more direct integration with APIs

That would be amazing to have. Users should be able to define custom commands, queries and chat replies.

Re: Google Allo – First Impression

#27

Post by pilif »

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…

>And when I change phones, more often than not, I end up losing all my old texts (because Apple hasn't figured out idiot-proof migration).

curious: How do you change phones? I have never lost any messages in iMessage when I was moving between phones.

Re: Google Allo – First Impression

#28

Post by hackaflocka »

threeseed wrote: post #15
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.

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.

Re: Google Allo – First Impression

#29

Post by Shank »

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.

Yep, same! I'll run my own homeserver for me and my friends when E2E kicks off.

Re: Google Allo – First Impression

#30

Post by IanCal »

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.

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