Allo was the world’s introduction to Google Assistant, and it seems that while the Assistant was destined for (far) greater things, Allo itself flew too close to the flame, and today that flame is extinguished. Or something.
If I’m honest, I barely ran the app after it was released, except for looking in on periodic updates – and they were few and far between. It had some fun features like changing text size to indicate importance (aka “shouting”), and … actually, that’s it. Most of my online chats aren’t based on phone numbers, and so there was little incentive to move into Google’s new world.
The two-year experiment (short, by Google terms) hasn’t been a complete wash, though – Google’s taken learnings and features from Allo and integrated them into products like Messages (its Android SMS/MMS/RCS app), that recently saw the addition of Google Assistant offering suggestions in the conversation.
Google never really made the case for why people should move to Allo, and consumers the world over didn’t sit around waiting for it. If you were actually using it though, you can export messages on your device (it’s under Settings, or see Google’s put up a support page with detailed instructions).
It was a good app. Now I must replace my Samsung messages app to get access to what I had in Allo, and even that is missing some features I really enjoyed. Group chat’s aren’t as nice now.
Rest in peace Allo, it was a good year and a bit of use. Now I guess we’ll go to WhatsApp or something…