Google’s Allo chat client for Android has a desktop version in the works, and what appears to be the final stages of preparation to roll out that desktop interface seem to have been found in an APK teardown of the latest version, among other new features being worked on. The indications showing that the desktop client may come soon include changes to the way that the mobile and desktop clients will sync up, with a newly redesigned QR code scanning screen that includes new content for indicating successful and failed pairings being one of the more prominent hints. Other new features that are present or referenced in some form include Google Drive in the data usage breakdown, Google Contacts integration, and a mysterious new feature called “Micro Machines”.
Along with the new QR code scanning interface, Allo’s imminent desktop rollout is also hinted at with a new name in the code, being Allo for Web rather than Allo Web, and a new icon. The new interface asks a few permissions questions upon a successful pairing. The new version also inserts a button in Google Contacts that allows you to jump straight from the page of any contact who uses Allo and into a conversation with them. The data usage breakdown introduced in version 14 of Allo has code in the app that could list usage related to Google Drive, but that feature is not live in the app as of this writing. Micro Machines, as they are called in the code, seem to be a way to integrate mini-apps and games into conversations, similar to Facebook Messenger.
Google Allo’s desktop client was officially confirmed a while back, and now it seems that the long awaited feature, one of the bigger factors keeping many people from making the jump from Hangouts, is almost upon us. Google has been making it increasingly clear that Hangouts is going to be changing its identity, though not going away entirely, and there is no shortage of implications that the app is meant to be supplanted in the consumer space by Allo, not the least of which is the recent loss of SMS functionality and a glut of new features coming to the business-targeted G Suite version of Hangouts that the consumer version apparently won’t be seeing.
