Google Allo or WhatsApp: Everything you wanted to know

The latest messaging app, Google Allo, is finally out. The first thing to consider is that there are already numerous messaging apps in the market. With the likes of WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Hangouts and so on currently ruling the roost, do we really need a new chat application?

Here's all you need to know about Allo and whether you really need to make the switch.

Design and feel

In terms of basic design and feel, Allo, at first glance, seems to have followed the path of WhatsApp - currently the top messaging app in the world. Allo has a clean design, easy-to-use interface and is easy to install.

You can do the usual stuff - send messages, share photos, stickers, emojis and so on. All this is part of standard messaging apps. Again, like WhatsApp, it uses the double tick method to tell users their messages have been delivered and lets you create group chat rooms.

However, it does all this while looking better than WhatsApp. The design is slicker snd there are options for advanced stickers, changing the size of text, images and so on.

What's "smart" about Allo?

Now, Google has billed Allo as a smart messaging app, "smart" being the keyword here. So, what is so smart about the app?

The striking feature about Allo is the smart AI built into the Google Assistant, which is like an always available helper bot built into the app. Like Apple's Siri, you can converse directly with it and ask it for all the information in the world. However, it can also slide into your personal conversations.

For instance, you're talking to a friend about eating out Chinese on a Friday evening. Whether you like it or not, Assistant will offer you a list of the best Chinese restaurants in the area. So, it is quite helpful, though some users might find it annoying too.

One might argue that the Assistant is not really a new idea. Apple has already used it with Siri and Microsoft with Cortana. However, powered with all that's there on its servers, Google is way ahead of its rivals in terms of search and AI. Add Google's other services - news, weather, finance etc, and you have an all-knowing, all-powerful storehouse of information in the form of Google Assistant.

So, in many ways, it offers much more than simple exchange of text and images between two or more people. It rather allows exchange of all kinds of information from the outside world. It might sound impressive but it remains to be seen how appealing the idea is to users who just want to chat with their family and friends.

Watch India Today's Gaurav Upreti explain whether you need to switch to Allo or not:

Smart Reply

Another interesting, and entertaining, feature in the Allo is Smart Reply. It learns from your texting pattern and suggests potential responses to people's messages. It could be a great tool considering our busy schedules and time-constraints.

"If your friend sends you a photo of their pet, you might see Smart Reply suggestions like "aww cute!" And whether you're a "haha" or ":D" kind of person, Smart Reply will improve over time and adjust to your style, said Amit Fulay, group product manager.

Privacy

In March this year, Google had announced that Allo would offer end-to-end encryption, and that it would delete your conversations after a certain amount of time. However, in a reversal, Google disclosed when it launched the app on Sepotember 21 that it will actually store your chats by default.

If you want your conversations to be truly private, you'll have to switch to "incognito mode". This mode will disable the Assistant feature, which is, in many ways, the app's USP. So, privacy advocates are not too happy with this aspect of the app.

Misses

Google has missed on a few crucial features. It doesn't have the option of making calls, already available on WhatsApp and Hangouts. WhatsApp has often been criticised for not offering multiple-device support - not having the feature to use the same account on different devices has been a cause of annoyance for many WhatsApp users. And Allo does not better. It does not offer multiple-device support as well.

A smart, fun, easy-to-use, slick app, Allo certainly feels like the smartest messaging app out there. However, the moot question remains that why more than a billion users already using WhatsApp would make the switch.