At its I/O 2016 developer conference, Google announced two new Exchange apps messages: Allo and Duo. The company thus doubled the number of messaging apps, which also includes Hangouts and Messenger. For now it seems the company plans to keep them all, as it hasn't announced any retirements or mergers of apps.
VB requested clarifications from Google:
Η Allo is a messaging app that uses your phone number, is mobile only, and was developed specifically to leverage Google's machine learning, to processing of natural language, and AI features that didn't exist a few years ago. Think of it as a child's toy from the company that aims to test the limits of what a mobile messaging app can do.
Η duo is an application video calls for one-to-one communication. It is mobile only, and developed to be fast, thanks to Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC). It is assumed that there will be fewer call interruptions, and it will support Wi-Fi connections but also through a telephone provider.
The Hangouts is a messaging platform that has been around for 3 years that has merged many features such as support for SMS and video calls. Is cross-platform and works on desktops and laptops.
Ο Messenger is Google's messaging service, an SMS app standard for Android devices. The company uses the application to promote it Rich Communication Services (RCS), enabling Android devices to offer features such as group messaging, IP voice calls, and file sharing.
At present, Allo and Duo applications are not officially released, and will be available later this summer. All these applications are managed by the same team in Google (Communications product team), founded about one and a half years ago by Nick Fox.
We recently saw that Google announced Spaces. However, this service is not a messaging application, but a social application such as Google+.
Google's messaging strategy has been confusing (2013, Google Talk, Hangouts, and Google+ Messenger), and it does not seem to change anything. Meanwhile, competitors, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger (and two owned by Facebook) are both top messaging apps, with 1 billion and 900 million users, respectively.
Facebook is totally dominated by space, and Google just seems to be experimenting. The company seems to be deploying applications from scratch to understand what could work as an innovation.
The difference between the two latest applications is the use of AI technologies and mechanical learning, but two features that have already incorporated Facebook.
Let's hope that one day Google will end up with a messaging app.
