Google announces two messaging apps, Allo and Duo, to counter WhatsApp and Facebook

Google’s messaging world is an ever-expanding horizon. Underscoring this fact, it has announced two more to the messaging app service fold; Allo and Duo — likely to be released this summer.

Tech world views this step forward as an attempt to beat rival apps WhatsApp and Facebook, each having aggrandised around a billion customers the world over with their user-friendly features and state-of-the-art techniques to keep people glued to the interface.

Over the years, we have seen many arrivals coming in and out of Google — Google Talk, Google Plus, Hangouts and Messenger. The announcement came at the I/O 2016 developer conference, 2016.

The new additions double the messaging app strength of Google which has already got Hangout and Messenger in the pack. The two new in the offing serve only on mobile platforms.

The preview on the official blog of Google brings an at-a- glance take of Allo and Duo. Allo is termed as “a smart messaging app that makes your conversations easier and more expressive.” It comes with a built-in Smart Reply akin to inbox.

And what more do you need if you can reply to your messages without typing out a single word! Got it? It takes time actually. The integrated machine learning technique over a period of time ‘learns’ the master so as to make suggestions that they are likely to come up — say whether you wanna make a ‘yay’ or ‘meh’.

Following in the footsteps of Chrome, Allo comes with the incognito mode feature with privacy and security concerns being the utmost concern of a user. The chats are safeguarded with end-to-end encryption and discreet notifications. In the long run, it promises to add new features.

Experience a high definition video call on Duo, the one-to-one video calling app. It highlights a ‘Knock Knock’ feature on the wait to pick up a call. ‘Knock Knock’ is a live preview of the person on the other end that “invites you into the moment, making calls feel spontaneous and fun.”

The claim to an icing on the cake is absolute performance in poor bandwidth as Duo is optimised to give its best on any condition. From all that is said Duo gives an assumption that it may outshine its present day twin Hangout in many ways.

The only feature that gives Hangout an edge over is its cross-platform ability to perform on both desktop and mobile. When it arrives, both Andriod and iOS users can cheer.