ALLO AND DUO: THE GOOGLE SIBLINGS SET TO RULE THE WORLD

Google has always been a huge proponent of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning and have always been an active participant in trying to develop something cooler than ever. It has come up with Self-driving cars (though market is yet to see it getting launched), better page ranking algorithms to do the best searches, etc. and now it has introduced ALLO and DUO to revolutionize the world of communication.

Google announced the launching of two messaging apps in 10thGoogle I/O 2016 Conference and promised to give the world a new way of messaging with its two new apps, Allo and Duo. These apps are scheduled to be released in the summer of 2016 for Android as well as iOS.

Allo

Allo is the smart messaging app with Google’s built-in AI. It has a simple yet elegant interface for the chat environment and instead of focusing on developing complex UI, Google has focused more on the features that might interest the people.

Allo has a strong security feature and you can sign up in this mobile only app using your phone number and it also provides an optional logging into the google account as well. It has provided the Incognito Chat option which will give you the ability to send anonymous messages and have those chats automatically disappear as the user finishes his chat. It has a built-in encrypted system that will work end to end with private notifications and message expiring options.

You can control the font size of your text in this app. If you are really excited to see a picture or want to send a big happy message, you can simply increase the font size of the text you wish to send. This feature has been named as “whisper and shout” by Google to appropriately fit your way of making your text giant or tiny.

One of the majorly distinguishable features of Allo is the Google Assistant. It is an AI based software that will allow the users to have more productive and expressive conversations by learning the texting patters over time and suggesting automatic reply to the incoming textual or pictorial messages. Users can also call this Assistant for information and it can offer possible replies to things friends say during chat. You can also start a conversation using @google with the Assistant and ask questions, or make reservations through features like OpenTable.

Google Assistant stands out of among all the features of the app and Google believes that it is going to challenge FaceBook’s messenger app.

Duo

Another chat app introduced by Google is Duo, a smart video chat app. It is designed to let users video chat and is much like its sibling app, Allo. One of the coolest features of Duo is the KnockKnock feature which will allow the user to see a live stream of who is calling them and what they are doing. It has also been incorporated with Google Assistant with similar features and an extra feature, KnockKnock for Duo.

Duo will also enjoy the secure features of Allo with end-to-end encryption as one of them. Just like Allo, it can also be signed in using your phone number. Google has promised that this app will be able to switch between Wi-Fi and cellular without any overhead.

Duo is a straight competitor of FaceTime feature of Apple. Since it is being released in iOS as well as Android, it threatens the current popular video chatting apps like FaceTime, Mobile version of Skype, etc. Though being a mobile only version gives FaceTime an edge over Duo but it will be really interesting to see how market reacts once these apps are released.