Google is “pausing investment” in Allo | Hacker News Reader

Google is “pausing investment” in Allo

theverge.com

33 pointsbluefreeze18 comments

>As part of that effort, Google says it’s “pausing” work on its most recent entry into the messaging space, Allo. It’s the sort of “pause” that involves transferring almost the entire team off the project and putting all its resources into another app, Android Messages.

I won't even try to fit the various SMS clients android phones have had into my list, but as an android user since ~2010, here is what has been asked of me

1. Use default SMS

2. Nah, use samsung's

3. Never mind, they all suck, just find one on the appstore

4. Look, Google Voice (app)! And it works with your google voice number! Wifi texting, neat! ~2011

5. Never mind, stuff that, use Hangouts! Also works with your google voice number! (but no mms!) ~2012

6. Wait a second, here's a couple more SMS apps built into android. ~2013, 2014

7. MMS yay!

8. Never mind, dump hangouts, we updated google voice finally! ~2015?

9. Here's two new chat apps, neither can text though! Good luck remembering which is for which (2016)

10. Fuck it, no more SMS on hangouts. 2017?

11. Lol nah to Allo as well, we're gonna make another SMS app. Were you still using google voice? <--- we are here

That's what happens when a company doesn't take product management or any kind of planning/vision serious and just builds whatever feels right in that moment.

There used to be a message on my phone that hangouts was deprecated in favor of messages for SMS. This message would pop up ever week or so after I acknowledged it.

Fast forward a couple weeks, I decide to delete hangouts and soley use "messages." Phone service stops working. I call google fi. Apparently Google Fi depends on the hangouts app to be installed. I complained that I wanted to use hangouts again because it grouped hangouts and SMS, reinstalled hangouts, and everything starts working again.

The message about deprecating hangouts has NEVER showed up again, and I get to use my phone as I wanted to in the first place. Hopefully my little piece of happiness in hangouts doens't get bombed on soon by some eager project manager

This was sadly predictable. And according to the article, Google is making another app, a service that will not only depend on Google, but on carrier buy-in to a standard called "Rich Communication Services" as well. (https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/19/17252486/google-android-m...) From the article:

> We can’t do it without these [carrier and OEM] partners. We don’t believe in taking the approach that Apple does. We are fundamentally an open ecosystem.

I think I heard the same spiel for Google Talk nearly a decade ago. Am I a cynic for thinking Android Messages will suffer the same fate?

Also - I'm pleasantly surprised to learn that Duo (the video messaging app) is fairly successful, according to Google's own metrics. I always did like Hangouts video chat; it was good at what it did.

This is quite different, because Google Talk was a pure data thing, while RCS is something the carriers are going to be keen on. They're particularly keen to be able to sell RCS messaging access to businesses, lest those businesses who are currently buying SMS for things like notifying you when your parcel delivery is due or reminding you of your eye test appointment skip straight over the carriers and start sending people WhatsApp or Facebook messages instead.

It could all fall over, and Apple don't seem to be giving any hints about if they'll be supporting it, but so far things are looking pretty promising for this technology.

Disclaimer: I work for a company which is a Google partner developing business RCS services for exactly this kind of use case.

This is one product Google should kill, although it would be better if it had just never been launched in the first place.

That and duo. I can’t find anybody using it. (I know I am being subjective, but as a user this is my mileage and I have to use other apps)

I recently stumbled on a use for Duo - for elderly people that have not used smartphones before, the interfaces of other apps like Skype, Hangouts, etc. are overwhelming. Duo's simple. It does only one thing.

Good luck getting anyone who already has a preferred app to use it, though.

FaceTime is even simpler to use. All my grandparents use it all the time.

Another proof that one should not rely on any service Google offers! What happened to Inbox, and the dozens of other services, which show that Google has a very poor product development! The amount of confusion and similar offering is just beyond anyone's imagination! From Google Talk to Google Voice to Hangouts to Hangouts on Air and now this got broken into Hangouts Chat and Meet to Duo and Allo and now RCS - wow! And I won't mention Google Spaces, Google Wave, and many others we don't even remember anymore! I'm not sure why they need to fragment the communication space into so many products!

I'm hesitant to rely any new Google services these days thanks to Google doing this almost all the time.

I think it only applies to messaging. I don't like this new approach also. No e2e is there. Plus it will take 2 years to give a good xp to a large set of users. Already looks like a flop. By that time, peoplw will be more absorbed into Whatsapp,iMessage. Whatsapp is already launching payment feature in india. I like google products but this has been very disappointing.

Allo supported e2e encryption in incognito mode.

https://signal.org/blog/allo/

Take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Discontinued_Google_s...

Google. The new Microsoft.

Google is ways worst than Microsoft. At least MS offer business support. Google looks like a broken AI changing its mind every 3 months

The result of all this "wait, no, this!" change?

I don't use any Google IM product, at all, any more. (And at one point, post AIM, they were my first choice.)

Buh bye

LOL @ "pause".

Would be quite the news to see "Google resuming investment in Allo" at this point.

Google's relationship with IM's is becoming a farce at this point. If you want to roll out an IM or chat service you/friends/company are to use and depend on, just make sure Google is not "backing" it. They clearly don't know what they are doing. I have lost track of their attempts. I wouldn't be surprised if they have tried with six or so incompatible systems by now.

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