Google's newest attempt at creating a decent instant messaging platform, Google Allo, is finally available. Google announced the new IM service at Google I/O 2016, and a whopping four months later, we finally get to try it out.

We're still not quite sure what the future of Allo holds. Will it eventually become Android's default instant messaging platform? Will we get a Chrome and Chrome OS client? After a lackluster effort with Google Hangouts (which Google says will stick around), how much does Google really care about this new platform? For now all we can do is talk about the present, and right now Google has given us an instant messaging client that doesn't seem like it was built for the modern age.

Setup—Google? What’s Google?

Setup is very odd in that Allo doesn't use your Google account. Sign-up and identification are done entirely through your cell carrier's phone number, just like Whatsapp and Wechat. After typing in your random string of 10 digits and getting a verification text, Allo pretends you are a complete stranger and asks for your name and profile picture. Google asking for my name is definitely off-putting, especially when—thanks to my prodigious usage of Google services—the company probably knows damn near everything about me. Allo acts more like a third-party service and pretends the Google connection doesn't exist.

There is no option to sign up with an e-mail address or your existing Google account. For a profile picture, Allo demands you snap a selfie right at that moment, and while you can feed it a stored picture, there's no option to pull a profile picture from Twitter, Google, Facebook, or from the "Me" profile picture that exists in your phone contact list. I had to leave the app, go to Twitter, download my profile picture, and then go back to Allo. For a company that pushes the "Sign up with Google" button on third-party software, this makes very little sense.

The carrier centricity continues through the contact interface—you can't talk to someone on Allo unless you know their phone number. Allo doesn't have its own list of friends or contacts—it just runs off of the phone's internal contact list.

The basics









Once you do get the app set up, you'll find a pretty basic IM app with a contact list and conversation pages containing read and delivery receipts. Besides text, you can send pictures, stickers, your location, or a voice recording.

From the contact list you can start an "Incognito" chat, which allows you to set a self-destruct time for a chat session. Google promises that your chat history won't be saved in incognito mode and that the chat is end-to-end encrypted.

As far as unique features, there's "Whispershout"—a feature that lets you adjust the size of the text you send by holding down on the send button and sliding your finger up or down for larger or smaller text. It's a fun, easy-to-understand feature that I could see copied by other IM apps, but it's not a compelling reason to switch.

Another unique feature is the "Smart Reply" functionality Google brought over from Google Inbox. Smart Reply has Google's cloud computers scan your message and generate a short reply. Usually this is something short like "nice" or "OK," but it's more useful than you might think. The feature is great at generating responses to "yes" or "no" questions, and Google even tries to make the responses match your usual writing style.

Device and service compatibility—not cut out for 2016









Let's talk about what you'll actually be using Allo on. Allo has an Android smartphone app, an iOS app... and that's it. There's no way to access Google Allo on the Web or from a desktop. For Google—a Web company—this is ridiculous.

The Android and iOS apps are for phones only. For Android, the Play Store flags all tablets as "Not compatible." You can ignore the Play Store warning and sideload Allo on a tablet, but then—like a surprisingly high number of Android apps—it doesn't support landscape mode. That makes it unusable on Google's flagship tablet, the Pixel C. On an iPad, you can install Allo, but since there is no iPad layout, you get the old school "2X" and "1X" zoom controls. These controls give you the option of a tiny iPhone screenshot in the middle of the screen or grainy, blown-up pixel doubling.

Not working on tablets is a minor problem when you realize that Allo does not support multiple devices. Let me say that again: Allo works and receives messages on a single device at a time. If you register your phone number with a second device, Allo turns off on the first device, and you'll get a notification saying that this device won't receive Allo messages anymore. According to a GlobalWebIndex study, the average Internet user owns 3.64 connected devices. Allo, which is only going to work on one of those devices, just doesn't seem built for the modern era.

If you do switch devices using the same phone number, you'll find yourself setting it up like you're a totally new user. Allo doesn't remember your name or your profile picture, and all your chats will be gone. From the user's perspective, Allo doesn't seem to save anything on the Internet at all.

As a Google product, you would expect Allo to work very well with Google's ecosystem, but that isn't the case, either. Allo works with Android phones but not Android tablets. It doesn't support Android Wear. It doesn't work on Android Auto. It doesn't support Android features like Direct Share or Direct Reply. There's no way to use it on Chrome or Chrome OS. It doesn't work with Google Voice. It doesn't support usage through "OK Google" voice commands. It doesn't even offer a way to jump into Duo for a video call, which was supposed to be Allo's "companion" video app.







Allo has SMS support, but it's not at all like what users of Hangouts, iMessage, or Facebook Messenger are used to. SMSes sent through the Allo app don't use your carrier's SMS system. They get sent first to Google, which then sends them to your contact. SMSes arriving to the other person don't appear to come from your phone number—they arrive as a five-digit short code.

Everything works as expected when you send a text, but any media content—pictures, voice recordings, or stickers—don't get sent. Instead Google appends an advertisement to the end of your text message—a URL that instructs the other person to download Allo if they want to see the content. On some Android devices without Allo, Google Play Services will kick in with a popup ad for Allo when someone sends you a message. This is actually a new feature of Google Play Services called "App Preview Messaging," which opens up the SMS forwarding feature to all messaging apps.

Despite some basic SMS functionality, Allo can't replace your current SMS app. It can't be registered as the default SMS client on Android, and it can't receive messages sent to your phone number.