It’s just under a week since Google introduced new messaging app Allo to the world. Even though reactions on Allo have been mixed thanks to it blending a fantastic feature in the futuristic Google Assistant and freaking privacy advocates because of the way Google handles the data the app captures from users.
Those privacy concerns, it appears, were not enough to stop people from downloading and installing Google’s newest messaging app even with Edward Snowden warning us against doing so.
On the Google Play Store [download link], Allo has blown past the 1 million downloads mark.
Duo, which Google launched last month to focus on video chats, already has over 10 million downloads on the Play Store.
Google Allo is a text-based messaging application with some added smarts. The messaging app incorporates the Google Assistant, a chat bot that can be used to answer any type of user query and programmed to deliver alerts while also interacting with users in fun ways like through games. Unlike other chat apps which are entirely reliant on user-to-user conversations, Allo’s Artificial Intelligence digging allows it to read an ongoing conversation, place it in context and automatically offer reply suggestions thus making it easier to chat faster without having to spend a lot of time writing the obvious as a response.
There are already reported plans of including the new Google chat apps as pre-installed apps on upcoming smartphones. Indian smartphone maker Micromax has already confirmed that four of its upcoming smartphones will arrive with the Google Duo app preloaded as part of its campaign to promote its devices as perfect for making video calls. At this point, it is not yet confirmed if Google will include Allo and Duo as part of the apps that it requires device makers to pre-install on devices. If that happens, then the popularity of the two apps could be assured and they could soon be on their way to the coveted billion downloads club that other Google apps like Maps, YouTube and Chrome, just to name a few, are in.
