Google Allo, which is the latest messaging app to come from the Mountain View company, was announced at Google I/O earlier this summer. It was announced with Duo which is their video calling app. Duo is actually already available on the Google Play Store, having launched earlier this week and is now the top app on both Google Play as well as Apple’s App Store. Allo hasn’t yet launched, but it does appear that the folks over at Android Police have gotten their hands on a pre-release version of the app already. They recently showed off some of the stickers that will be found in the app when it finally launches this fall, and now we’re looking at the voice messaging interface for the app.
Voice messaging allows you to send a quick voice note to someone. Kind of like voicemail, but without having to call them. It’s a really popular way of communicating with others, especially in the Middle East and Asia. While in the America’s, most people still opt to type out responses to other users. Now the interface for voice messaging here on Allo looks pretty familiar. If you’ve used WhatsApp at all, you’ll know exactly what we mean. Just tap and hold the microphone on the right-hand side of the compose screen and record your message. You can let go and it’ll send it automatically, or you can slide across the bottom and cancel the voice note.
The UI is pretty simple, and should make it easy for users to learn how to use Allo and send voice notes using the service. While services like WhatsApp do have a couple other cool animations included, Allo does look a bit more modern and clean. Which is what you would expect from Google with Allo. Now there’s still no word on when Allo will be available, but many believe that the hold up is actually Google Assistant (the same reason why the two Nexus devices are coming out later this year, instead of with Nougat). Google Assistant is going to be a big part of Allo, and most of Google’s other products in the near future. So it is important that they take their time and get it done right.
