With Duo launching this past week we were wondering if Allo would show itself. According to Android Police, the app is, in fact, being tested, the messaging component at least, and of course, they’ve got their hands on a few screenshots. Today we’re getting our first look Allo’s Sticker Packs and message deletion.
Sticker Packs
Stickers, they have become a central part of the messaging experience, if a picture is worth a thousand words a sticker may be worth twice that. Today’s leaks show off the range of stickers available in Allo.
Allo will offer 24 sticker packs typically with 24 stickers n each pack, that’s around 576 Googley stickers. Before you get to excited it doesn’t look like custom sticker packs are coming, personally, I’m gutted by this, I just don’t think I can communicate without my Business Fish sticker pack.
If the leaked screenshots are correct you will start your Allo sticker experience with just 3 sticker packs by default with the option to add more, and the starting packs are…..
From there you have the ability to add 21 more packs to the interface. This is an improvement over Hangout’s method of just giving you all the packs and you having to sift through a pile of mediocre stickers to find the one you want to send. Allo will allow you to add and remove Sticker packs at will.
Once installed you also have the option of arranging the order so you most favourite stickers are at the left-hand side of the list. If you want to check out the style of each pack check them out below.
The art style of the Stickers is similar to that in Hangouts however in some of the packs Google may have walked a little more on the wild side.
Message deletion
The actual news about Allo is that it will let you delete individual posts from your message stream. This isn’t a new feature, apps like Telegram have included the option for some time, however, the newness of a feature is less important than its utility. It’s important to note that like Telegram deleting the message will only delete it from your device, it won’t remove it all together from all participants of that chat.
The feature can be handy if someone else posts something you just don’t want showing up on your device, we’ll let you decide what that might be. At the moment it doesn’t allow you to select multiple messages to delete. Message deletion is a handy feature and we’re glad to see it finally coming to one of Google’s chat apps.
As with all rumoured features, until it is released anything can change. With Android 7.0 rumoured to be releasing very soon and Allo in active testing we may well see it land on our devices, perhaps without Google Assistant integration at launch, very soon.
The success of this app for me will depend on its cross-device support and, long term web support. A chat app that is only usable from one device is completely useless to me when the competition offers multi-device, multi-platform support. Please Google, get it right.
How is Allo shapping up for you? Let us know below
I have convinced most of my contacts to switch to Threema – not only because it’s Turnbull’s choice, but also because it’s one of the most secure messenger apps and can be used anonymously. Even if Allo were a great messenger (which is quite unlikely considering Google’s past efforts in this game), I wouldn’t switch again.
Multiple devices support is not necessary but desktop is necessary. Like WeChat and WhatsApp. How can I let my friends use allo instead of others is a big challenge.
Whatsapp is the perfect messenger. It has everything what messenger should have so unless there is a huge advantage why would you use Allo?? Sorry google for being too late to join the party
There is always room for more competition. But I do agree this app is seriously lacking. Google could release an app like Telegram for instance that is true multi-platform and it would just about kill anything else out there. I will install it and play around with it, but that’s as far as it goes for me. Not worth recommending to anyone because it is so lacking. I want to start a conversation on my phone and then if needed, switch to desktop – and vice versa. I don’t want to be locked into a single device or platform. It’s… Read more »
I prefer Facebook Messenger simply for the searchable gif option. This is the only major fail of Whatsapp for me
One thing Facebook Messenger has that Hangouts lacked is the simple acknowledgement that the receiver had seen the message. Some people just need to know the message has been delivered. The ticks next to the message seem to indicate that Allo has something along those lines.
Hangouts has had that feature for a while. In regards to Allo, I believe that means that the message has been sent.
Where in Hangouts does it acknowledge that the receiver has seen it? I am not doubting you, just asking. There is a date time that you sent it and there is a green dot to indicate they are online, but that does not equate to the “Seen” function in Messenger.
The profile photo/image of the recipient of the Hangouts message will drop below your sent message when they have seen/read it. The profile photo/image will stay under the last message they have read in the conversation.
You don’t get a time stamp, but you do at least know that they’ve read it.
Yes, you are correct, it does but only in the Android app, not the desktop version. I await Allo for it to be much more obvious. I hope that is what the ticks mean.
I use Hangouts on a daily basis from the desktop via Firefox and it works exactly the same as the Android and iOS app, with the profile photo dropping below the message after it’s been read. I can screenshot if you like.
Cheers
I do not doubt you. I only use Linux and Chrome and use Hangouts all the time and it certainly does not happen for me on the desktop. I see a fault report coming up. I will try Firefox and see what happens.
No drama, hopefully you can get it to work too, it’s a great feature to have.
Cheers
I just logged in to Gmail in Firefox on Linux and Hangouts is the same as Chrome. Thanks, now I know it is missing. I will probably switch to Allo when it is available as that seems to be where Google is pushing us.
Allo is limited to one mobile device and doesn’t have a web interface or application for now… Unfortunately like you said, Google is pushing users to these new apps…
Hangouts works a treat for me to be honest, even though it’s not perfect.
Cheers
It does work in Linux. I was basing everything on one user. The others are working. Ho Hum. It is just his account for some obscure reason.