Google Claims that Hangouts Will Live On Despite Google Allo Being a Competing Product

[dgstorm]

Sometimes you have to wonder if Google's various departments have a problem communicating with each other. The company is notorious for making new products and services which end up competing with their other products and services.

The latest example of Google competing with themselves is the just announced Google Allo. It's basically a new messenger app service designed to go toe-to-toe with What's App. What makes Allo standout is that it seamlessly integrates other Google services like YouTube, Maps, and Search. It will also offer "smart replies" so users can chat with Google's new virtual assistant. The awkward thing is that they already started down this road with Hangouts, so basically everything Hangouts can do, Google Allo can now do as well.

Despite this conundrum, Google assures us that Hangouts will continue. A Google spokesperson said, "We're continuing to invest in Hangouts and it will remain a standalone product." Google also sees Hangouts as a product designed to focus more on the enterprise level. Here's a quote with more of the details,

"For one, Hangouts is tied to Google's enterprise For Work products that's aimed at business customers, and which includes Gmail and Docs, and is available on desktop. Allo, by contrast, is mobile only, doesn't require a Gmail account, and is focused on the power of artificial intelligence." ~ BusinessInsider

What do you folks think? Couldn't they have married much of Hangouts functionality into Allo, and then simply branded it as a vastly improved Hangouts?

 

[Jonny Kansas]

I feel like Allo is more of a competitor with their Messenger app than Hangouts. I know that Hangouts can do SMS and video chat, but Messenger only does SMS & MMS. Given that Allo is tied to your phone number, I would assume that we'd see Messenger die before Hangouts.

 

[droidprincess]

I feel like Allo is more of a competitor with their Messenger app than Hangouts. I know that Hangouts can do SMS and video chat, but Messenger only does SMS & MMS. Given that Allo is tied to your phone number, I would assume that we'd see Messenger die before Hangouts.

I agree!!... I think messenger will go before Hangouts does.

Sent from my SM-G928V using Tapatalk

 

[kodiak799]

I now use Hangouts for free wifi calling...it seems to work quite well.

 

[Vepaot]

I really don't understand why they can't just add the various features to existing applications and roll them all together into one package? Google themselves talk about how much they want to stop Android fragmentation on the Android level, but they don't seem to have a problem fragmenting their userbase by releasing multiple apps with very similar features.

 

[Jonny Kansas]

I really don't understand why they can't just add the various features to existing applications and roll them all together into one package? Google themselves talk about how much they want to stop Android fragmentation on the Android level, but they don't seem to have a problem fragmenting their userbase by releasing multiple apps with very similar features.

I'd say that I wonder if it's because the underlying base code is so different, but it's not like other developers have never re-written an app from the ground up before, so I'll just agree with you because you're talking sense.

 

[Mustang02]

Hangouts will die off. The dev team doesn't do anything with it anymore.

 

[Vepaot]

I'd say that I wonder if it's because the underlying base code is so different, but it's not like other developers have never re-written an app from the ground up before, so I'll just agree with you because you're talking sense.

I've never written an app, programming was the one computer science class I failed in high school. But even if having to start over was the case, can they not release the new program in the Play Store with the same name and all that and force people to update to it? It just seems a mess. I remember being on Google Voice not too long ago, and then they forced me to switch to Hangouts. Now it looks like I'll be forced to switch again sometime soon anyway.

 

[Jonny Kansas]

I've never written an app, programming was the one computer science class I failed in high school. But even if having to start over was the case, can they not release the new program in the Play Store with the same name and all that and force people to update to it? It just seems a mess. I remember being on Google Voice not too long ago, and then they forced me to switch to Hangouts. Now it looks like I'll be forced to switch again sometime soon anyway.

Hell, they can change it completely AND change the name and it will show as an update, if they do it right. What we know as Hangouts now originally came as an update to the Google Talk app.

 

[Mustang02]

Hell, they can change it completely AND change the name and it will show as an update, if they do it right. What we know as Hangouts now originally came as an update to the Google Talk app.

Gchat actually.
Gchat to Google talk to hangouts.

 

[Jonny Kansas]

My post is still correct. Hangouts came as an update to Talk.

But you're right. I had forgotten about Gchat.