Google freezes Allo and relies on Chat

Development of service Allo by Google suspended, what said the new head of communications at Google Groups Anil Sabharwal. He decided it would be better to concentrate on the application «Android Messages".

One of the main reasons for freezing Allo became fairly low interest on the part of users. The developers decided that it makes no sense to try to make it a viable competitor to Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp.

Product as a whole has not reached the level of popularity, which we expected. It was created to attract millions of people to use it and interested. At this stage, we do not feel that we are on the right track.

Anil Sabharwal

If you use Allo, the worry for his further work is needed. The application will continue to function, Google will support it in the future.

As already noted, the search giant will return to the origins, to the simple SMS. After all, despite the popularity of instant messengers, people are still forwarded around 8 trillion ordinary text messages a year. To this end, Google creates Chat - service to send messages that will replace or rather improve the traditional SMS on Android devices.

Google Chat is built on a standard Universal Profile for Rich Communication Services (RCS). It will expand the possibility of sending messages, allowing you to receive a read notification message and a set of response, as well as complement the text images and videos. Also with it you can create group conversations. However, support for all of these functions must be implemented on the side of your mobile operator.

Such messages will be paid as messages in chats ordinary messengers, that is, will have to pay only for the traffic. If the recipient does not use the Chat application, as, for example, in the case with the iPhone owners, he will receive a normal SMS.

Inherently Chat will be very similar to iMessage from Apple. He even displayed a web version. However, there is one "but»: Google service does not provide data encryption, which means that all your messages are stored on the servers of the operator in a readable format. Probably, those who are confused by it, continue to use messengers like Telegram.

Starting the Chat to be held in a few months, initially his trial will be held in the US alone. Later, towards the end of this year or early next, new SMS messages on Android worth the wait, and in other countries.