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Google Is Shutting Down Its Allo Messaging App, Says Report (9to5google.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the another-one-bites-the-dust dept.

According to 9to5Google, citing a source familiar with the plan, Google will "soon" announce that it will be shutting down its Google Allo messaging app. "This development comes almost 8 months after Anil Sabharwal, Vice President of Chrome, Comms and Photos at Google, said that the company was 'pausing investment' in Google Allo," reports 9to5Google. It also comes less than a week after 9to5Google reported that Google will be shutting down Google Hangouts for consumers sometime in 2020. Google may delay the news about Allo due to the backlash stemming from the article about Hangouts. From the report: Lately, some of the app's remaining users have complained of bugs and broken functionality: there have been messages not being delivered, features like hearting posts randomly disappearing for some, and the latest stable version has been unable to perform Google Drive restores of chats for several weeks. Meanwhile, essentially the entire Allo team was moved to work on Android Messages and spent the last several months porting over much of Allo's features and functionality -- all leading up to the recent beginnings of evidence that the rollout of Google's RCS 'Chat' initiative is gaining traction.

62 comments

  1. Guess it is time... by SuperKendall · · Score: 2

    ...to say Au Revoir to Allo.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Guess it is time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't know why you say goodbye, I say Allo.

    2. Re:Guess it is time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...get a life outside of slashdot, you nazi Colorado INCEL?

  2. Russian troll says by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Dasvidanya, comrade!

    1. Re:Russian troll says by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      In a gadda da vida, baby!

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  3. Allo? by sageres · · Score: 1

    Never heard of it. Did anyone?

    1. Re:Allo? by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 2

      I assume that's part of the problem.

      Google isn't above Microsoft-like mee-too-ism trying to clone (or buy) into the competition of a new, hit app.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    2. Re:Allo? by ArchieBunker · · Score: 1

      Never heard of it either.

      --
      Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    3. Re:Allo? by Luthair · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Nah, they already had a messaging app. This is internal politicking spilling out into the public. Unfortunately you don't make a name for yourself maintaining and iterating on an existing product, you need to make something new. Ideally you make something new and while that is still in flight parley it into something else. Rinse. Repeat.

    4. Re: Allo? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I do not care about Allo. If they shut down Hangouts and have no replacement VOIP app tied to Google Voice, that I will miss.

    5. Re: Allo? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It was heavily censored. You were not even allowed to say I LOVE YOU.
      Filter error: donâ(TM)t tell the truth

    6. Re:Allo? by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 2

      It was one of about eighty Google chat apps they were peddling, each obsoleting the others with circular dependencies.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    7. Re:Allo? by Anubis+IV · · Score: 1

      I think it was the one that debuted as an Android exclusive, with the ability to type directly to the Google Assistant? Honestly, I'm not sure. I only stopped using Google Talk last year, just in time to have to leave Google Hangouts because it was shutting down too, just in time to have to migrate away from Google Chat because my company was switching to Slack to get away from all of that nonsense.

    8. Re: Allo? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hangouts is being shut down though.

    9. Re:Allo? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope. I'm on the internet everyday for hours at a time and work in IT and have never heard of it.

    10. Re:Allo? by thewolfkin · · Score: 1

      Never heard of it. Did anyone?

      Yesh it was supposed to be the text paring with Duo. Allo and Duo were supposed to replace hangouts. Which was mostly working fine the way it was. I miss being able to watch YouTube videos as a group on Hangouts that was a great feature.

      --
      Just another second banana
    11. Re: Allo? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Allo, the replacement for Hangouts, is being replaced with Hangouts, which is going to be replaced with..... Skype?

  4. Nazi spambot says by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Auf Wiedersehen, Kumpel!

  5. Who knew by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It was even still running? It could go down for a week and nobody would notice

  6. Could Google just fucking tell me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    What app they want me to use. New announcement each week should be enough.

    1. Re:Could Google just fucking tell me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Someone please register google-messaging-app.com and make it redirect to whatever happens to be Google's messaging app.

    2. Re:Could Google just fucking tell me by sexconker · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Hangouts was their best app, it did everything, and it could have been updated to do more / support better codecs / etc.
      But they kept neutering it.

      We went from Hangouts to:

      Messages, for SMS
      Allo, for other text chat
      Duo, for video chat
      Chat, which is a clone of Hangouts but with more bullshit and less functionality
      Hangouts, which hasn't completely gone away because because it works, works on the web, is built into their "Google Apps for Business/Education / G Suite / Whatever New Name" thing, and is the only one people actually use

      Hey Google, give me $10,000,000, a small team of code slaves, and I'll fix this all for you within a year.

      Spoiler: It's "Hangouts", it supports SMS (fallback and explicit), it supports the stupid assistant but it's off by default, it supports group SMS and falls back to spamming people individually if they don't support that shit, and it supports end to end encryption (okay, okay, we'll bake in the Google spyware, put down the jumper cables).
      It works on the web, including redirecting SMS to / from the web client from / to a preferred linked device. We'll update it to support new video and audio codecs too. And we'll even add in a search function so people don't have to use the awful Gmail search to find things from their chats (which only gives you results a single damned line at a time).

    3. Re: Could Google just fucking tell me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ^this^

      None of Google's messaging apps have ever been perfect, but Hangouts is the best.

      Hey Google, quit killing messaging apps! Pick one (Hangouts) and focus your energy on improving it, not starting over all the time.

      Take a clue from Apple: they have one messaging app. Their users can feel safe that it's not going to be dropped tomorrow on a whim. Why would I want to use any new messaging app from Google knowing that it will be scrapped any minute?

    4. Re:Could Google just fucking tell me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I still use Hangouts and I haven't even heard of any of the other programs you mentioned... I went from ICQ and AIM to the iPhone chat to Hangouts. I have no idea why they would discontinue Hangouts, it works on every device and does everything, it hasn't pulled the rug out on any features and has had a consistent UI. It seemed dependable to me, the only thing I can't depend on is Google I guess.

    5. Re:Could Google just fucking tell me by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      The only real flaw in Hangouts is that it lacks end to end encryption, but otherwise it's by far and away the best option available.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    6. Re:Could Google just fucking tell me by swillden · · Score: 1

      The only thing in your rant that I disagree with is:

      Chat, which is a clone of Hangouts but with more bullshit and less functionality

      Chat actually has more functionality. It's taken over as the messaging tool of choice inside Google because it's better. Among other things you can actually send files other than images to people through it. Very convenient when you're talking about some file to just be able to include it in the conversation. The chat room functionality is a little better, too, and the web UI is better if you're someone (like me) who frequently has a dozen conversations ongoing.

      The big downside of Chat is that it's so enterprise-focused that you can only use it with people in your organization. This is really annoying, because I use Hangouts to chat with many external partners, which means that I have to use both Hangouts and Chat. Worse, Chat is still semi-integrated into Hangouts, so my Chat messages also appear in Hangouts, meaning I get duplicates.

      All the rest, though, I agree. Google should make the incremental improvements that Hangouts needs (including pulling in some of the Chat features it lacks) and drop all of the other stuff. I don't think that's what's going to happen, though.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    7. Re:Could Google just fucking tell me by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

      It's good, but it suffered poor take up because it started out as a branch of Google+ which meant two things:

      1. Nobody wanted to use it because that meant having to use Google+
      2. Google decided to force it on everyone, removing the XMPP chat system in GMail, for example, and replacing it with Hangouts, which made people even more pissed off and made it harder to get acceptance. Whenever there was an alternative, ANY alternative, people would use it, even if it were Skype.

      I'm disappointed it'll be turned off in two years. This should be a lesson to Google that turning off the "Do no evil" motto for a few years because FACEBOOK IS WINNING ARGH WE MUST DO SOMETHING is ultimately dumb and will destroy them.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    8. Re:Could Google just fucking tell me by sexconker · · Score: 1

      Chat has more functionality than Hangouts in the same way Slack has more functionality than IRC.
      Fuck Chat.

    9. Re:Could Google just fucking tell me by swillden · · Score: 1

      Chat has more functionality than Hangouts in the same way Slack has more functionality than IRC.

      I can't think of a single thing Hangouts does that Chat doesn't, and several things that Chat does that Hangouts doesn't. I don't think you know what you're talking about.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    10. Re:Could Google just fucking tell me by sexconker · · Score: 1

      SMS / Hangouts unification before they killed it off, then SMS integration (as separate chats) before they killed that off too (it was fairly recently that they forced people on the last good version of Hangouts to switch to the new, gimped Hangouts). Old Hangouts also worked with latitude very well. Now Latitude is dead, and partially baked into Maps, but you HAVE to enable location history if you want to see where your friends/family are on the map now.

      You don't know what you're talking about. Google has been on this spree for years and years.

    11. Re:Could Google just fucking tell me by JohnStock · · Score: 1

      Hangouts got the axe now too. Google really are out of control

    12. Re: Could Google just fucking tell me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Something it doesn't seem to support is users whose enterprise has not signed up to it, so even within an enterprise it might be pretty useless if you want to talk to externals. If you're an SME then Ted is probably down the hall, but the company about to deliver the twenty new desks for your expansion probably isn't on Chat.

  7. Open source it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...open source that so it can be used as a android sample source code.

  8. Google confused! Such smart folks one would think. by bogaboga · · Score: 1

    Google should just buy Viber & Line messaging services. They do have the money. After the purchase, they should migrate all of them to Telegram's protocols.

    With this action, Google will have over 1 billion users fast.

    They can then push advertisements to make serious cash.

  9. G keeps shutting down services. by wolfheart111 · · Score: 1

    Because it keeps shutting down services. 2B honest. :)

    --
    [($)]
  10. can we have gchat back now? by blahbooboo · · Score: 1

    With such a huge install base with the original Gchat, it takes a certain knack to so drop the ball continually on messaging.

    Google, how about just go all in on hagnouts or bring back Gchat?

    1. Re:can we have gchat back now? by sexconker · · Score: 1

      Wasn't hangouts a direct Gchat replacement at the beginning?

  11. Goodbye Allo by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1

    EOM

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    1. Re:Goodbye Allo by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      You say "Yes", I say "No".
      You say "Stop" and I say "Go, go, go".
      Oh no.
      You say "Goodbye" and I say "Allo, allo, allo".
      I don't know why you say "Goodbye", I say "Allo, allo, allo".
      I don't know why you say goodbye, I say allo.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  12. what was wrong with hangouts? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's been around for over a decade. why replace it with two others only to discontinue them as well?
    Why can't google just pick one and stick with it?

    Seems epidemic. Yahoo shutting down aim. MS shutting down theirs.
    Why are so many messaging apps, long-term ones even, going by the wayside?

    1. Re:what was wrong with hangouts? by Dunbal · · Score: 1

      Because people are saying mean things to each other and companies are afraid of lawsuits.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    2. Re:what was wrong with hangouts? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, maybe they should choose their terms of service differently.
      I recall that the Yahoo Messenger terms claimed full ownership of anything you said or shared on its service. Maybe they thought you'd share some neat idea they could chance upon and patent or something? Sounds like all it did was make them liable for all the crap people say on it. One reason we didn't use it for corporate discussions. Ever.

    3. Re:what was wrong with hangouts? by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      The world needs that Yahoo like text chat, mic and webcam app.
      Find a way for people to connect for "free" and a brand will grow.

      Why in 2018 is text, mic and something like HD and lower resolution webcam so difficult to code fo the web?
      So one person on the web can "message" another person on the web, secure in a browser?
      Its not like code has to be kept over decades of version drift on OS like Mac, Windows, Linux.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    4. Re:what was wrong with hangouts? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They wanted hangouts to become strictly for businesses because it was simple and streamlined (which is why I would use it) and Allo for consumers because it has a lot of ties to Google for searching and displaying contextual info like local restaurants if you mention food in the conversation or movie times if you mention a movie and crap like that.

  13. Google is shutting down search... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...will now just display a bunch of ads and unrelated links - they don;t expect anyone to notice

    1. Re: Google is shutting down search... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What part of shutting down allo can you not understand?

    2. Re: Google is shutting down search... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hold on Sheldon, Leonard went to get his sarcasm sign.

  14. Google Allo? by grep+-v+'.*'+* · · Score: 2

    Google Gbye.

    --
    If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
  15. another one bites the dust. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    if its not search or email or ad delivery. don't count on google keeping it around.

  16. for an additional $10,000,000.... by NextApp · · Score: 1

    ....I'd be happy to offer my Android development services to remove the "Start Video Call" button from being placed directly in the ActionBar, which at least one user in any 50+ person chat will accidentally tap at least once per day. $10M may seem like a lot of money to simply add the text 'showAsAction="never"' to a menu XML file, but rest assured the resulting goodwill toward your company will be of significantly greater value.

  17. Alko allo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You silly old bat.

  18. Still don't know why they deprecated Hangouts by Solandri · · Score: 1

    Hangouts worked. You could use it to send texts on your phone. It integrated with Google Voice allowing you to make VoIP calls from your phone, tablet, or computer using your Google Voice number. That integration also meant you could send and receive texts from a computer or tablet logged into your Google account (great for typing faster and copy/pasting URLs). That's right, all your devices could simultaneously send/receive the texts allowing you to hop between them without having to switch to your phone just to respond to a text. You could make video calls with it, including conference video calls with 3+ people. And because of the integration, those people could join the video conference call via their phone, tablet, or computer. It was the one app to rule them all.

    Then for some mysterious reason they announced they were dropping Hangouts, and splitting all its features into a confusing array of apps, one for SMS, one for VoIP, one for video calls (which only works with 2 people, no conference calls). Except the SMS app (Allo) also had a counterpart which duplicated its functionality and was installed as default SMS app in Android (Messages). Which makes it not at all surprising that they're dropping it too now.

    1. Re:Still don't know why they deprecated Hangouts by dunkelfalke · · Score: 1

      Because somebody wanted to get promoted.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    2. Re:Still don't know why they deprecated Hangouts by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Doesn't Hangouts still do all that stuff? I have never bothered to use Allo and I use Hangouts for SMS on my Android phone, and to make calls via Google Voice — which is the only phone I've got that works where I live. I am on Exede Satellite. It looks like all the same stuff I've been using is still in Hangouts, and not deprecated at all. The only thing that isn't in there is video calls, which I never use, never have used, and probably never will use.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re:Still don't know why they deprecated Hangouts by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

      It currently does, but as far as I'm aware it's not integrated with their other messaging systems.

      Anyway, yes, Hangouts is deprecated. As in they've made an official statement they intend to shut it down, and people within Google are saying it'll happen within two years (see the update part.) They'll be branding some replacement products as "Hangouts" ("Hangouts Chat" and "Hangouts Meet"), but these aren't the same service or similar in how they work.

      I really think they couldn't have fucked up Hangouts, from its initial status as a Google+ project that was forced on users of their original XMPP system, to the inexplicable decision to deprecate and get rid of it, while simultaneously introducing other chat systems only to shut them down too. Who the hell would use a Google chat system right now? Once Hangouts is gone, I doubt many people will switch to a Google alternative.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    4. Re:Still don't know why they deprecated Hangouts by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Once Hangouts is gone, I doubt many people will switch to a Google alternative.

      Nobody was anyway, so I guess nothing has changed. I will however continue to use whatever lets me make google voice calls until they find a way to shut that down, too.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  19. Surprised? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is anyone really surprised? This is Google...

    Anyone who knows Google, knew that this was going to happen within 18-24 months.

    https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=9125529&cid=52137209

    https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=9125529&cid=52137693

  20. Never heard of it by nagora · · Score: 1

    Was it any good?

    --
    "Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
    1. Re:Never heard of it by stinerman · · Score: 1

      Not really, and I used it pretty regularly. It had some predictive AI built in, but it was just another messaging app using whatever protocol.

      All people want is something that is:

      1) Secure
      2) Has a first-class web client
      3) Falls back to SMS

  21. Back to SMS by Danathar · · Score: 1

    Looks like the only reliable cross communication messaging platform (that I can get people like my wife's parents) to actually load on their phones (and no, they are not going to install signal) is going to be SMS. Hangouts looked like it was something I could get all my android and iphone friends/family to get on board with. Back to SMS it is.. :(

  22. Re:Google confused! Such smart folks one would thi by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

    Then after a few years they should announce that they plan to close those messaging services down within the next two.

    Nobody will care because nobody in their right mind right now is going to use a Google messaging system ever again, so if they buy the systems you're proposing, there will be a mass exodus to Skype or Facebook messenger or something like that.

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.