At I/O 2015 Google today announced, Allo, a new messaging app with Google Assistant built-in. The company also introduced a new video messaging app, Duo for a one-to-one conversation.
Allo - Messaging on Steroids
Allo is a messaging app built from the ground up to take on WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. But its more than that, Allo comes with Google search built in and allows for rich messaging. The company has commissioned independent artists to make custom stickers for the app which will be different for different regions.
If you want to search within Allo, all you need to do is start messaging to @google with your query and the app searches the web for a result. You will also get suggested searches for additional information. You can even start a conversation with the Google chat bot by asking it to play a game of guessing movies with a string of emojis. But that's not all, with its massive knowledge graph Allo would give you automatic reply suggestions. Say, you get a graduation image, you will get options to reply with "Congratulations" and for a dog "cute dog" without any user action. It also learns the way you talk and prompts similar quick replies.
Allo also has an incognito mode, when enabled you get an end-to-end encryption and not even Google can read your chats. Any text from an Incognito chat won't be visible on the lockscreen or on notifications and as with the incognito mode on Chrome, once closed the chat won't be available on your device.
You would need to sign up for Allo with your phone number and it will be available for free later this summer for both Android and iOS.
