Second Opinion #9: Allo & Duo Review

Published: Oct. 8, 2016, 12:29 a.m.

b'Things in Common
\\n
\\n* Available on Android and iOS.
\\n* Uses your phone number, your phone contacts to populate its contacts list.
\\n
\\n* Can only have one device associated with your number at a time.
\\n* Problem: I have far more people\\u2019s email addresses than phone numbers.
\\n
\\n* Not available on tablets.
\\n
\\nAllo
\\n* Instant messaging app.
\\n* Integrates the new Google Assistant.
\\n
\\n* Finally admitting that most people don\\u2019t want to talk to their phone to get stuff done most of the time.
\\n* Seems to work alright. I discovered that it can send you the day\\u2019s weather forecast every morning. My little sister played games with it for a while.
\\n* This is pretty much Allo\\u2019s only unique feature, so when the Assistant becomes available in more areas of the phone/in Google Home, Allo will lose a lot of its appeal.
\\n
\\n* Does not tell you if a contact has Allo yet. If they do not, it sends the message as an SMS with a link to install Allo.
\\n* When you switch devices, you lose all your messages from the old device.
\\nDuo
\\n* One-to-one video calling.
\\n* How is the video and audio quality?
\\n* Interface is simple, clean, to the point.
\\n* Knock knock.
\\nAttributions
\\n
\\n* Free Music Archive: Beat Doctor – Organic (electric edit)
\\n
'