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(Googler also, also unrelated product) I felt like Allo was actually a really great product. Comparing it's UX and features to other messaging apps out there,

by kyrra 8y ago

(Googler also, also unrelated product) I felt like Allo was actually a really great product. Comparing it's UX and features to other messaging apps out there, I felt like it was one of the most polished (iMessage or FB Messenger being similar). From a product strategy POV, it felt like a product targeting Asia (specifically India, as it launched with Indian themed sticker packs), at least at launch, but that changed over time. Also, it's important to distinguish Allo from Hangouts from the account perspective. Allo is phone # tied, like WhatsApp/Telegram. So definitely trying to go after a different market segment. It just failed. Duo continues to be awesome. Being a FaceTime competitor that is cross-platform is great. No account needed, just simply start a video chat from your address book (or from the App). Hangouts is... something special. There are clearly reasons things happened the way they did. But I think it's good to see that Hangouts Chat/Meet will be open to consumers eventually.

killjoywashere 8y ago
> Hangouts is... something special. Would you, please, elaborate?
- cjtrowbridge 8y ago
  Hangouts integrates your Google Voice and Google Fi texts right into web pages like GMail, contacts, etc. And this works even if your phone is off, lost, broken, or has no service. Hangouts also works on any device with an internet connection if you log in. You can text and call from your number on literally any device just by signing into hangouts. None of the multitude of other redundant Google messaging products does any of this. Even their official replacement "messages" only works if your phone is on and has service. You don't even need a phone to call and text from a laptop through GMail from your phone number. That functionality will be lost.
  - millstone 8y ago
    This makes no sense to me - why not integrate texts into Google Sheets or Google Maps? This feels like pushing unrelated projects to boost engagement. iMessage does not invade my email. Didn't Google get badly burned integrating chat into gmail (Google buzz)?
    - tehlike 8y ago
      Gmail has chat. It is gchat->hangouts. I love it. What you said doesnt make sense is actually easy to get hooked up onto. I get a phone call, and i can answer it from my laptop, or it goes to voice mail and i get a transcript. It is amazing.
      - barry-cotter 8y ago
        You may love it. Many, many other loved Gchat and abandoned hangouts immediately after the forced downgrade as an unbearable trash fire.
    - mikelward 8y ago
      I too prefer keeping them separate. Thankfully there's hangouts.google.com.
  - shaklee3 8y ago
    You should add that no product from anyone else has this capability, even on iPhone.
    - axaxs 8y ago
      This is what bugs me. It's not an overly complicated idea, and I feel many users would actually pay for it. Why has nobody tried? When I search for alternatives, I only find business offerings, with worse functionality. I just want to use my provider for data. Lemme call and text via the web/app, keep my number safe, and my money is yours...
    - matwood 8y ago
      I use iMessage and FaceTime across many devices that are not my iPhone. What I can't do is go to a random computer and sign in to see my messages.
      - shaklee3 8y ago
        imessages cannot send sms over data; only iPhone to iPhone messages. Hangouts can send a standard sms to any number from anywhere in the world using WiFi/data for free. This is a huge feature that doesn't get enough press.
  - killjoywashere 8y ago
    The question was for kyrra specifically. I have Google Fi and I really enjoy hangouts. The "... something special" was what I was interested in, specifically I was interested in an insider's POV.
  - newmanships 8y ago
    Yeah this really bums me out because a lot of the time I just use Gmail on my laptop as my phone. Do you know any other services that have this type of functionality?
  - mrb 8y ago
    I agree with you 100%. Most of the time when I'm receiving a text I'm sitting in front of my computer with a Gmail tab open. So the ability to text back directly from my computer (with a full size keyboard) is absolutely the killer feature of Hangouts integrating the Google Voice/Fi phone number. I simply cannot imagine using anything else. Those who haven't experienced this workflow don't know what they are missing. I do 200-400 texts weekly and this saves me easily 1 hour per week in gained efficiency (context switching, fumbling with phone fingerprint unlocking, composing text on small phone keyboard...)
    - losvedir 8y ago
      > So the ability to text back directly from my computer (with a full size keyboard) is absolutely the killer feature of Hangouts integrating the Google Voice/Fi phone number. Another Google Fi user here. To be clear (since this was a shock when I learned it this morning) - you can text from your computer with a full size keyboard with Android Messages now. It's just more WhatsApp-style where it's paired with your phone, so you need to have your phone on and working. It also isn't integrated right into Gmail. So it's not as nice but it's got the "killer feature" of texting from your computer (which, I agree, is killer) at least.
- kyrra 8y ago
  I know too much about it, that I can't say exactly why it's "special", sorry. Most of it would just have to do with internal organizational details. The below is my take on Hangouts based on it's history here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Hangouts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Hangouts It's interesting to remember that it was born out eating multiple existing services (GChat/GoogleTalk, Huddle, and some other things probably). When it launched, it was trying to cleanup Google's fragmented text/video messaging strategy. One funny thing is how message history search worked. There is no in-app searching history. You can search on the Gmail desktop client and see history, but no where else (no mobile app. Not in Inbox. No-where but gmail desktop). Along the way they added SMS support for it, which they later scrapped for everyone except Project Fi/Voice customers. Hangouts has done a lot in the last 5.5 years (since its launch). It may have tried to do too much, which may have caused some problems (especially on usability). Hangouts Chat and Meet seem to try to start fresh and build a good product focused on business customers. How that plays out for normal gmail consumers has yet to be seen; I'm really hoping they do a good job with it.
lern_too_spel 8y ago
Allo is an awful product that should never have been greenlit. It was a huge step back on Google's core mission "to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessibleand useful." Not only could you not search your chat history from other devices, but you couldn't even use it from other devices at launch, and even when that was fixed, it was clunky. Much better would have been to attach phone numbers to Hangouts, similar to how iMessage ties phone numbers to Apple IDs.
kkarakk 8y ago
Allo was so unpolished compared to whatsapp/telegram att it was hilarious,you def drank the koolaid too much. every indian i met treated it with disdain.
- kyrra 8y ago
  I'd love to hear why you think it was unpolished. I've talked with a number of people (both Googler's and other tech people) that liked the product (at least where it was going). My problems with it were: * It used the "phone is the source of truth" like Whatsapp, but it didn't go with always-on encryption (so they could do Google assistant in it). * They didn't launch with a desktop web client, which it eventually got (and I really like it). * It didn't launch with any kind of backup/restore system, though it eventually got it (so you could move to new phones). Things I liked: * Encrypted chats (incognito mode) worked well and had expiring messages. * The Overall UX/UI for the mobile app and Desktop are (in my opinion) better than all the other messaging apps out there (except maybe iMessage). (Though I don't use any FB products.) * It was on iOS and Android, and had the same features on both.
  - kkarakk 8y ago
    i don't remember now and it seems impossible to find an article with my list of complaints but: 1. feature parity wasn't there. i already have whatsapp,you're asking me to move. feature parity would be minimum requirement 2. it didn't auto discover people like whatsapp does(or atleast it didn't when i tried it initially), people needed to sign up for it adding friction to an already unpleasant process of getting people to switch 3. duo wasn't in allo and allo wasn't in duo. if there had been just one app it would have had a greater value prop(at the time) of chats with video chatting. instead there was a whole 'nother app to manage. once whatsapp announced voice calls(followed by video) getting anyone to "allo/duo" was absurd 4.i remember number porting was buggy in some way, just flat out didn't work for 2 days can't remember the rest but i remember something about the emojis bugging me(google implementation different from whatsapp) and being unable to send pdfs it needed to compete from day one not "find it's feet" gradually. i find this to be a problem with all google products really

by kyrra 8y ago

killjoywashere 8y ago

> Hangouts is... something special. Would you, please, elaborate?

cjtrowbridge 8y ago
Hangouts integrates your Google Voice and Google Fi texts right into web pages like GMail, contacts, etc. And this works even if your phone is off, lost, broken, or has no service. Hangouts also works on any device with an internet connection if you log in. You can text and call from your number on literally any device just by signing into hangouts. None of the multitude of other redundant Google messaging products does any of this. Even their official replacement "messages" only works if your phone is on and has service. You don't even need a phone to call and text from a laptop through GMail from your phone number. That functionality will be lost.
- millstone 8y ago
  This makes no sense to me - why not integrate texts into Google Sheets or Google Maps? This feels like pushing unrelated projects to boost engagement. iMessage does not invade my email. Didn't Google get badly burned integrating chat into gmail (Google buzz)?
  - tehlike 8y ago
    Gmail has chat. It is gchat->hangouts. I love it. What you said doesnt make sense is actually easy to get hooked up onto. I get a phone call, and i can answer it from my laptop, or it goes to voice mail and i get a transcript. It is amazing.
    - barry-cotter 8y ago
      You may love it. Many, many other loved Gchat and abandoned hangouts immediately after the forced downgrade as an unbearable trash fire.
  - mikelward 8y ago
    I too prefer keeping them separate. Thankfully there's hangouts.google.com.
- shaklee3 8y ago
  You should add that no product from anyone else has this capability, even on iPhone.
  - axaxs 8y ago
    This is what bugs me. It's not an overly complicated idea, and I feel many users would actually pay for it. Why has nobody tried? When I search for alternatives, I only find business offerings, with worse functionality. I just want to use my provider for data. Lemme call and text via the web/app, keep my number safe, and my money is yours...
  - matwood 8y ago
    I use iMessage and FaceTime across many devices that are not my iPhone. What I can't do is go to a random computer and sign in to see my messages.
    - shaklee3 8y ago
      imessages cannot send sms over data; only iPhone to iPhone messages. Hangouts can send a standard sms to any number from anywhere in the world using WiFi/data for free. This is a huge feature that doesn't get enough press.
- killjoywashere 8y ago
  The question was for kyrra specifically. I have Google Fi and I really enjoy hangouts. The "... something special" was what I was interested in, specifically I was interested in an insider's POV.
- newmanships 8y ago
  Yeah this really bums me out because a lot of the time I just use Gmail on my laptop as my phone. Do you know any other services that have this type of functionality?
- mrb 8y ago
  I agree with you 100%. Most of the time when I'm receiving a text I'm sitting in front of my computer with a Gmail tab open. So the ability to text back directly from my computer (with a full size keyboard) is absolutely the killer feature of Hangouts integrating the Google Voice/Fi phone number. I simply cannot imagine using anything else. Those who haven't experienced this workflow don't know what they are missing. I do 200-400 texts weekly and this saves me easily 1 hour per week in gained efficiency (context switching, fumbling with phone fingerprint unlocking, composing text on small phone keyboard...)
  - losvedir 8y ago
    > So the ability to text back directly from my computer (with a full size keyboard) is absolutely the killer feature of Hangouts integrating the Google Voice/Fi phone number. Another Google Fi user here. To be clear (since this was a shock when I learned it this morning) - you can text from your computer with a full size keyboard with Android Messages now. It's just more WhatsApp-style where it's paired with your phone, so you need to have your phone on and working. It also isn't integrated right into Gmail. So it's not as nice but it's got the "killer feature" of texting from your computer (which, I agree, is killer) at least.
kyrra 8y ago
I know too much about it, that I can't say exactly why it's "special", sorry. Most of it would just have to do with internal organizational details. The below is my take on Hangouts based on it's history here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Hangouts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Hangouts It's interesting to remember that it was born out eating multiple existing services (GChat/GoogleTalk, Huddle, and some other things probably). When it launched, it was trying to cleanup Google's fragmented text/video messaging strategy. One funny thing is how message history search worked. There is no in-app searching history. You can search on the Gmail desktop client and see history, but no where else (no mobile app. Not in Inbox. No-where but gmail desktop). Along the way they added SMS support for it, which they later scrapped for everyone except Project Fi/Voice customers. Hangouts has done a lot in the last 5.5 years (since its launch). It may have tried to do too much, which may have caused some problems (especially on usability). Hangouts Chat and Meet seem to try to start fresh and build a good product focused on business customers. How that plays out for normal gmail consumers has yet to be seen; I'm really hoping they do a good job with it.

lern_too_spel 8y ago

Allo is an awful product that should never have been greenlit. It was a huge step back on Google's core mission "to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessibleand useful." Not only could you not search your chat history from other devices, but you couldn't even use it from other devices at launch, and even when that was fixed, it was clunky. Much better would have been to attach phone numbers to Hangouts, similar to how iMessage ties phone numbers to Apple IDs.

kkarakk 8y ago

Allo was so unpolished compared to whatsapp/telegram att it was hilarious,you def drank the koolaid too much. every indian i met treated it with disdain.

kyrra 8y ago
I'd love to hear why you think it was unpolished. I've talked with a number of people (both Googler's and other tech people) that liked the product (at least where it was going). My problems with it were: * It used the "phone is the source of truth" like Whatsapp, but it didn't go with always-on encryption (so they could do Google assistant in it). * They didn't launch with a desktop web client, which it eventually got (and I really like it). * It didn't launch with any kind of backup/restore system, though it eventually got it (so you could move to new phones). Things I liked: * Encrypted chats (incognito mode) worked well and had expiring messages. * The Overall UX/UI for the mobile app and Desktop are (in my opinion) better than all the other messaging apps out there (except maybe iMessage). (Though I don't use any FB products.) * It was on iOS and Android, and had the same features on both.
- kkarakk 8y ago
  i don't remember now and it seems impossible to find an article with my list of complaints but: 1. feature parity wasn't there. i already have whatsapp,you're asking me to move. feature parity would be minimum requirement 2. it didn't auto discover people like whatsapp does(or atleast it didn't when i tried it initially), people needed to sign up for it adding friction to an already unpleasant process of getting people to switch 3. duo wasn't in allo and allo wasn't in duo. if there had been just one app it would have had a greater value prop(at the time) of chats with video chatting. instead there was a whole 'nother app to manage. once whatsapp announced voice calls(followed by video) getting anyone to "allo/duo" was absurd 4.i remember number porting was buggy in some way, just flat out didn't work for 2 days can't remember the rest but i remember something about the emojis bugging me(google implementation different from whatsapp) and being unable to send pdfs it needed to compete from day one not "find it's feet" gradually. i find this to be a problem with all google products really