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Google Allo
Everyone
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Introducing Google Allo, a smart messaging app that helps you say more and do more. Express yourself better with stickers, doodles, and HUGE emojis & text. Allo brings you the Google Assistant.
Smart Reply
Respond to messages without typing a single word. Smart Reply learns over time and suggests responses to text and photos, in your style.
Ink
Get creative with the photos you send by doodling on them or adding text.
Stickers
Say it all with the perfect sticker. Stickers in Google Allo are designed by independent artists and studios from around the world.
SHOUT or whisper
No more typing in ALL CAPS to get your point across. Say it louder or quieter by changing the size of your text with a quick swipe.
Meet your Google Assistant
Google Allo brings you the Google Assistant. Find restaurants nearby, share videos to watch, and get answers, right in your conversation with friends. Add @google to your group conversation or chat one-on-one with your Assistant. It’s your own personal Google, always ready to help.
Incognito mode
Send messages with end-to-end encryption, use private notifications to help keep your chats more discreet, and control how long your messages stick around with expiring chats.
* Some features not available in all countries
Smart Reply
Respond to messages without typing a single word. Smart Reply learns over time and suggests responses to text and photos, in your style.
Ink
Get creative with the photos you send by doodling on them or adding text.
Stickers
Say it all with the perfect sticker. Stickers in Google Allo are designed by independent artists and studios from around the world.
SHOUT or whisper
No more typing in ALL CAPS to get your point across. Say it louder or quieter by changing the size of your text with a quick swipe.
Meet your Google Assistant
Google Allo brings you the Google Assistant. Find restaurants nearby, share videos to watch, and get answers, right in your conversation with friends. Add @google to your group conversation or chat one-on-one with your Assistant. It’s your own personal Google, always ready to help.
Incognito mode
Send messages with end-to-end encryption, use private notifications to help keep your chats more discreet, and control how long your messages stick around with expiring chats.
* Some features not available in all countries
My review
Review from
Reviews
4.2
151,757 total
5 89,040
4 28,446
3 15,011
2 7,486
1 11,774
Gabriel Lopez
Lots of Potential Yes this app is the closest thing to iMessage you're going to get on Android and it works well. With a few key improvements it could be great. -Should be able to text people without allo and have it go through as a regular text to eliminate the need of a second texting app -Sticks should be previewed before sending like emojis are to prevent accidental sending -Repay from notifications should have the ability to type out your text instead of only the auto prediction responces
Neil Braun
Um... I fail to see the point. It's not an SMS capable app, meaning you can't replace your text messaging app with it. It has the newest version of some cool Google stuff, namely Assistant, but makes it harder to get at than it should be. It requires the user on the other end to have it to work right or you need to delete it's self advertisement in order to use it to send a message via your built in SMS app. In my opinion being able to set this as default would make sense.
Evlok Duo
Killing My Phone Google Allo is great, I do love it, but if I'm being honest I don't know why I'm using it. It cant send SMS messages, can only be used on one device, and every single piece of media sent to me HAS to be downloaded to my phone to be seen. That part doesn't even make sense, in fact it makes me angry. Storage is cheap these days but I don't want to have to manage every gif and pic I get sent. For now, skip Google Allo until it's updated. I'm probably moving on for the time being as well.
Lauren B
The concept of this App is phenomenal but there are a few major issues. For one, there's no way to fully integrate SMS into this app. Receiving a text will always open up another SMS app unless I specifically set the conversation up in Allo. A more full integration would be phenomenal. The bigger issue is that my messages to other Allo users are going undelivered for a long time, sometimes hours. It "sends", and sits on the Google server for ages without the other party ever seeing it. This is true even when I'm hooked up to incredible wifi with full signal strength. I'm going to have to stop using this app until this particular issue gets fixed, which I hope is soon!
Mohammed Mo
Still needs improvement So far the app is coming along. Love the quick suggestions the stickers better quick response. But... 1.still have issues for instance it takes a while to receive the notification from wifi to LTE 2. Still receiving late text over wifi approximately 5-10min 3. Still not a default messaging. 4. Still gotta use the other messaging app when receiving text from important places like school bank and etc. 5. Please get rid of the random 5 digit number when texting others without allo messaging app.Still love it😊
Dennis Cambly
I had anticipated something better from Google. Yet another messaging app. Big deal! Microsoft blew off the greatest program they had called Live Messenger. Skype sucks. I wrongly thought Google would build a better Live Messenger style mobile app. A giant gap exists for a cross-platform video, audio, messaging all-in-one app. How is it possible for the Google technical personnel to think so small? As Microsoft takes away all the programs people love to use no one at Google takes note.
User reviews
Lots of Potential Yes this app is the closest thing to iMessage you're going to get on Android and it works well. With a few key improvements it could be great. -Should be able to text people without allo and have it go through as a regular text to eliminate the need of a second texting app -Sticks should be previewed before sending like emojis are to prevent accidental sending -Repay from notifications should have the ability to type out your text instead of only the auto prediction responces
Um... I fail to see the point. It's not an SMS capable app, meaning you can't replace your text messaging app with it. It has the newest version of some cool Google stuff, namely Assistant, but makes it harder to get at than it should be. It requires the user on the other end to have it to work right or you need to delete it's self advertisement in order to use it to send a message via your built in SMS app. In my opinion being able to set this as default would make sense.
Killing My Phone Google Allo is great, I do love it, but if I'm being honest I don't know why I'm using it. It cant send SMS messages, can only be used on one device, and every single piece of media sent to me HAS to be downloaded to my phone to be seen. That part doesn't even make sense, in fact it makes me angry. Storage is cheap these days but I don't want to have to manage every gif and pic I get sent. For now, skip Google Allo until it's updated. I'm probably moving on for the time being as well.
The concept of this App is phenomenal but there are a few major issues. For one, there's no way to fully integrate SMS into this app. Receiving a text will always open up another SMS app unless I specifically set the conversation up in Allo. A more full integration would be phenomenal. The bigger issue is that my messages to other Allo users are going undelivered for a long time, sometimes hours. It "sends", and sits on the Google server for ages without the other party ever seeing it. This is true even when I'm hooked up to incredible wifi with full signal strength. I'm going to have to stop using this app until this particular issue gets fixed, which I hope is soon!
Still needs improvement So far the app is coming along. Love the quick suggestions the stickers better quick response. But... 1.still have issues for instance it takes a while to receive the notification from wifi to LTE 2. Still receiving late text over wifi approximately 5-10min 3. Still not a default messaging. 4. Still gotta use the other messaging app when receiving text from important places like school bank and etc. 5. Please get rid of the random 5 digit number when texting others without allo messaging app.Still love it😊
Google Inc. September 22, 2016
Hi Mohammed. Thank you for your feedback! We're excited to make Allo even better over time, so please keep letting us know what you think. In the meantime, happy messaging and thanks for giving Allo a try! I had anticipated something better from Google. Yet another messaging app. Big deal! Microsoft blew off the greatest program they had called Live Messenger. Skype sucks. I wrongly thought Google would build a better Live Messenger style mobile app. A giant gap exists for a cross-platform video, audio, messaging all-in-one app. How is it possible for the Google technical personnel to think so small? As Microsoft takes away all the programs people love to use no one at Google takes note.
SMS? Really? Totally disappointed to say the least. This app would be so much better if it utilized your data network like other messenger apps. Did Google even consider those who choose not to use SMS? I mean I know you can simply choose to use any other messenger app but that's besides the point which is Allo utilizing SMS severely limits it's capabilities and usefulness.
More Adjustments 1. Make the encrypted messages send alerts if there is a screenshot taken. 2. The same way you can say "OK Google" for a search hands free , You should be able to speak to Allo hands free since she is my virtual assistant. 3. All should be interface with Maps to alert me of traffic conditions... I hope this feed back was helpful
Battery killer Finally have a friend in allo and I am kinda liking it. But chatting for about 20 minutes took almost 25% battery life. This app is an insane battery killer! I also wish the orange guy that looks like Kenny would be ported over from Hangouts. It also needs a black theme for AMOLED screens.
It's literally OK(needs more features) No problems. It's just not feature rich like iMessage. I use both platforms and iMessage is just better. So much better. Google Assistant is ok not impressive. There needs to be more features added. Also to increase user base make it default for Android Nougat. It's really hard to make this app awesome when no one uses it. It should be default app everywhere in order for it to be slightly useful. Android needs to catch up with iOS on this front big league. They are so far behind.
Its good but could be better I did like the app but these days with other competitive apps this app should have better features. We cant reply from notification. We cant make voice or video call, instead google have another app (Google Duo) for video calling, you guys should rather integrate both apps. For eg. Hike messenger app allows stickers and private locked chat and video calling. Recently announced, whatsapp is going to release an update to allow video calling. Looking forward for good features.
Love the app would like full SMS integration This app is wonderful as a messaging app from use if you are talking to someone who also has the app downloaded. Getting people to download the app is the main problem. All the features are amazing except that is does not have complete SMS integration. If I was able to set this as the default messaging app and have it switch flawlessly between "Allo" messages and SMS messages depending on if the person you are talking to has Allo downloaded then this would hands down be the best messaging app available.
Lacks so many important features Why can't you sync your messages across devices? Why can't we use this as an SMS app? Why is there not a desktop client? How am I supposed to convince my friends to join me on an app that lacks so many basic features. Come on Google, you're better than this
The app had amazing features but still needs work The messaging features are great, but the integration with sms is non-existent. Many people use sms only, and a good integration with sms would encourage many more users to try the app. An iMessage style integration would be perfect. There is also not good support for Android wear, which should allow you to read through your chats and reply to messages. The ability to access your conversations from the web would also be a great addition.
Very promising but not at par with other leading messaging apps Lovely concept of dynamic font sizing and the sticker tie ups. Assistant is super useful as well... The problem? Lacks video call integration (Why Is Duo a separate app anyway?) and more importantly, chat backups.. found that out the hard way when I upgraded my phone to a Pixel. Google can't afford missing out on basic features like chat backup when other apps are doing so much more.
It works great Most of the people complaining are just throwing tantrums because the app didn't fit in their little frame of thought as to what the Allo was supposed to do. The facts is Allo is a great chatting platform. Google Assistant might seem like a gimmick if you only play around with it but once you start using Allo in real conversations that matter to you, you quickly realize how helpful and versatile Google Assistant really is. Most of the complaining revolves around Allo not having SMS fall-back.
Doesn't Actually Work The app itself is kinda neat and offers a good competition to Apple's messaging app, but for me it doesn't actually work. None of my contacts use it and although it can send SMS, it doesn't receive SMS as all SMS goes through my messaging app. I tried to change the default SMS app and my phone doesn't recognize Allo as an option.
Good Start 3 Stars not completely compelling users to leave other apps There is a lot of good things about Allo. Most features work really well minus a little lag when sending messages at one point. To make Allo a really compelling option and get people to use it unfortunately SMS has to be supported. Google assistant is not enough to pull most people from WhatsApp, but if the app would automatically send SMS to those that don't have it installed or an Allo message to those that do without user interaction it would be a truly compelling app for a lot of people.
If it would just send normal text messages via the phone number you gave it, this app would be great. It is limited and friends/relatives on the iPhone get an awful experience when receiving text messages from the app. I wish they would just redesign Hangouts to have this new/more responsive interface with all the old features available from hangouts. I want a single application that manages all my message communications.
No SMS integration still no SMS integration so need multiple apps for friends who have no need for this app (iPhone users). Should not download every multimedia message that is sent automatically to my phone. Still waiting for a unified app from Google to handle all my messaging. Apple and Facebook have done it...
Google Inc. September 23, 2016
Hi Ryan. Thank you for your feedback! We're excited to make Allo even better over time, so please keep letting us know what you think. In the meantime, happy messaging and thanks for giving Allo a try! It's good but needs speaking options so you can have a hands free talk and listen conversation. I was shocked that Google didn't do this from the start. Apple has been for a while old tech to have a conversation with phone. So please google step up.
Version 2.0 some things fixed. But only for 7.1 users App updated. Version 2.0. still no native sms and I cannot quick reply from the notification with a custom message. Also it appears the gif keyboard support is only for 7.1 users? For shame. There's points docked. So basically the app itself didn't change at all for me. I got direct share but that's about it. Update-- why no RCS/SMS support?
Why, Google? Why did you build a system AROUND SMS instead of allowing texts to go through? This app could be good. But because you can't SMS and no one has any reason to download another messenger, it will ultimately flop. I had such high hopes.
Good app, but needs SMS! Good, smooth app. Good features and assistant is great. BUT there is no way I can switch everyone I know to Allo. Short code SMS is bad. I would love to replace messenger with Allo but it's not possible right now. I have to use both apps. And that's kind of redundant.
Needs SMS, Google Voice and Android wear support. After a few weeks- So lack of SMS still kills this. Can't use it with anyone because they don't want to switch messenger apps. Can't write to my kids because they only message on their tablets, no numbers to register. So in the end Hangouts still rules the roost. Plus video calling on Hangouts is still good enough. Can't use Duo for the same reasons above. No point at all. Waste of time Google.
No SMS fallback Unless it has the option to just be used for straight up SMS this is never going to be adopted widely. Having seen what the texts look like on the end of someone without allo installed and without app preview available it looks completely like spam messages.
Old not a New and Better Idea How hard is it to create a unified messaging application that ties into an online messaging service and reverts to sending and/or receiving a basic SMS/MMS messages in the event that the messaging service is unavailable and/or the recipient doesn't have a supported messaging application? We want a single/simple all-in-one application, similar to iMessage, that handles both advanced/data messages and carrier SMS/MMS seamlessly. Nothing both parties must download. Can't make default?!
Good start I like what you have so far. The biggest thing is getting people to use it when my iphone friends just got iOS 10 and all the new iMessage features. Would love to be able to like people's posts. I like being able to change the size of the text. The imaging compression is a bit much at the moment for pictures. Lastly, Duo and Allo still need to be linked.
Hangouts is better FIrst, Google had Hangouts (actually first was Google Voice, which I just began using), a cross-platform SMS and MMS video and caller with fun plugins, stickers, and more. It is probably still used more than any of the other new Google apps. Then, for some reason, Google decided to redo all their apps, and thus, this messenger app was created. It isn't bad, has a lot of the same functionality as Hangouts, but it's new and still needs to be worked on, like being more like Hangouts. This has no video or calling service. Then Google comes out with 2 more apps, Duo and Allo. Really??? The only thing good about Allo is Google Assistant and Incognito, and maybe the UI and a few other stuff to send like shouting. Other than that, it is the same as Messenger. I didn't get Duo, but what I hear from it, it seems to be a really simple video chat, without all the cool features Hangouts has. Also both are 2 separate apps with no normal call feature. Hangouts is best. Google texting+sms+mms+video chat+voice call+fun plugins and more. Google should update Hangouts, not make more apps.
Needs SMS, so many things, Google is directionless A privacy advocate's worst nightmare. It's absurd that Google would develop an Orwellian data-collection machine while every other chat app is crowing about privacy and security. What's even more bizarre is how half-baked this app is—not ready to compete with iMessage or WhatsApp at all. No voice calls, no SMS integration, no support for multiple devices, I can't imagine why anyone would give this a second look. Google has no plan to compete with Apple or Facebook.
Amazing but Useless This really is a fantastic chat app. However no one I know uses it. This app should replace the standard messenger app. If it allowed you to send basic texts to everyone and gave the additional features when both parties have Allo I think people would use it more. Until then I have no use for it.
Nice but missing features The concept is cool, but it won't pick up steam or be used by me until it can do SMS. It also needs a PC/tablet app. I hate Facebook Messenger but I can use it on my phone, my Chromebook, my windows PC AND my iPad. Allo has to be as ubiquitous to stand a chance. PLEASE ADD SMS SOON.
This app is positioned as a messaging app. If I look at it from that perspective than I can't give this app more than two stars. The reason is that I really don't see the point of launching another messaging app again. Apart from the assistant it falls short on other messaging apps. In mho if you launch an app that is positioned as a 'messaging' app' it should be extremely good in all forms of messaging to begin with. This app does not meet this criteria by a long shot (it doesn't offer all forms of messaging and it is not present at every platform: mobile and web). The fact that it has a very good personal assistant (I like it in that regard!) does not make up for it since imho the assistant should/could have been a seperate app, be part of the launcher and/or should/could have been incorporated into Google's other messaging apps. The last point I want to make is that Google's communication about encryption has not been very clear to say the least. As I understand it now the communication is encrypted so the messages cannot be intercepted but they are stored on google's servers unencrypted (unless you use private mode).
Ugh Okay Google you need to make this app able to be a default messenger app for our phones like iMessage. Cause it's good but no one wants to have messenger as default and then have allo on the side. I forgot I had it even on my pixel xl. Please do it make it a default messenger app! Then I'll give it five stars.
It doesn't give me the option to change the enter key to send the message?! I've accidentally sent hundreds of half finished messages due to this. I've never seen such a bare bones, basically, generic app before. No options to make it more user friendly for individuals. What a joke. I'm about to get an iPhone just for iMessage. AND HOW DID ONE PERSON OUT OF HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS GET A REPLY FROM YOU?! Please let me know the secret.
Instantly useless Sorry. Some people might not agree, but no sms support = no go. Installed, tried to message someone, spammed them with a download invitation that's more reminiscent of malware than a legit messaging (?) app. No thanks. Good thing they added the assistant because that's the only "person" you'll be talking to on there.
It's nice. it's neat. it's useless No users. No reason for users to adopt it. Doesn't do sms, so no way to draw users to it. Tied to one device only - phone, no desk client yet ... basically no network effect and no reason for anyone to adopt it.Can't login w/ any existing Google identity! Wtf? Must create new account from scratch w/ phone number. You know what does everything and is multi-platform? Hangouts. Hangouts is all-in-one chat, text, video calling. My friends and I all gave Allo a try....and went right back to Hangouts
Sad to see Google fail at messaging... Again Google really just doesn't get it when it comes to messaging. In the United States we SMS message by default. IMessage was so successful on Apple because it was fully integrated with their own SMS application. Google needs one messaging app. Application needs to be quite simple and just involves SMS messaging and their IM protocol.
nice try. So far, just another messaging app. Headed in the right direction but so far quite disappointing. If Allo is to be a personal assistant it falls disappointingly short. My assistant needs to talk to me, and give me accurate information. So far Allo has failed that test. I'm looking forward to some major improvements.
Not receiving messages Not receiving messages till hours later. Was working well but the last week has been terrible. I wish Google would combine the features of allo, duo, hangouts, messenger, and the features of the Verizon messaging app. Mainly being able to send and sync messages between devices. If all this happened we would finally have a great messaging app.
Review deleted
What's New
• Android 7.0 Nougat support: Switch from portrait to landscape to view more apps at once – and multi-task with the best of 'em. Plus, stay on top of everything faster by replying right from your notifications.
• Accessibility improvements: Improved Talkback interactions with voice messages and typing indicators.
Additional information
Updated
October 31, 2016
Installs
5,000,000 - 10,000,000
Requires Android
4.1 and up
Interactive Elements
Users Interact
Permissions
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Google Inc.
Developer