Google confirms Allo will shutdown in March

If you’ve been trying to access Allo today, you probably were upset to find that an outage wasn’t letting messages go through and Google Assistant, which first launched on Allo, was not working either.

Following a report from 9to5Google about Google Allo's possible fate, Google released a blog post about the future of Allo, Duo, and Android Messages.

We want every single Android device to have a great default messaging experience. We’ve been working closely with the mobile industry to upgrade SMS so that people around the world can more easily enjoy group chats, share high-res photos, and get read receipts on any Android device.

Allo hasn’t been receiving attention from Google because several months ago, Google shifted development from Allo and Duo to focus on improving the Android Messages app going all in with RCS (Rich Service Communications), which is set to be the true successor to the outdated SMS (Short Message Service) default messaging service on Android.

In parallel, we built Google Allo, a smart messaging app, to help you get more done in your chats and express yourself more easily. - Given Messages’ continued momentum, we’ve decided to stop supporting Allo to focus on Messages.

The last time Allo was updated on Android is January and the app has already shown signs of aging with bugs and Google Drive restore is borked. With so much competition for instant messaging apps available like Facebook, Telegram, WhatsApp, WeChat, and Line – just to name a few, it doesn’t make sense for Google to pursue Allo’s success when Android “Chat” and RCS is just around the corner.

Allo will continue to work through March 2019 and until then, you’ll be able to export all of your existing conversation history from the app—We've learned a lot from Allo, particularly what’s possible when you incorporate machine learning features, like the Google Assistant, into messaging.

As Google has done with previous platforms and services, it starts them up to learn the ins and outs until eventually Google applies what it learned from the failed product into a new one. In this case, many of Allo’s features were ported to Android Messages, the default SMS and soon-to-be RCS client on Android phones.

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