Google has never had a rousing success with messaging apps and Allo is no different.
Google has today put on a notice on Allo’s website, where they have set March 12th as the messaging platform’s expiry date.
This move comes after Google was reported suspending the development of Allo back in April last year. Google said that the product had not ‘achieved the level of traction’ they had hoped for and they were not on that trajectory.
Allo was announced back in 2016 alongside Duo and it seemed like it would be Google’s answer to Apple’s iMessage.
The eventual demise of Allo is sad since Allo seemed like a viable messaging platform for Google, which has had a bit of bad luck with them. Allo had a cool interface with smart features like smart reply, Google Assistant integration, stickers and more.
If you were a regular Allo user, you’ll need to export your chats for safekeeping. Open Allo, tap on the side menu, tap settings then chat and you can either export your chat as a .csv file or your media as a .zip file. You need the latest version of Allo to be able to do this.
Google is now shifting focus on the development of Messages and the addition of Rich Communication Services RCS). RCS has a number of benefits like sending larger higher quality images, streaming media and better group chat capabilities for consumers and better targeting, real order confirmations and analyzing campaigns by marketers.0