Google’s new chat app Allo has updates on the way, including potential Duo integration

Google‘s latest messaging app, Allo, may have been just released, but it has already met its fair share of criticism, with people mainly pointing out its lack of features and the generally scarce interest in switching to a different app that friends and family may not use. However, it seems that things will indeed change in the foreseeable future…

When the much anticipated Allo finally began its staged rollout yesterday, the social media-friendly Justin Uberti — one of the leaders of Google’s engineering team behind Allo and Duo — thanked everyone who “understood that this is a v1.0 product”, hinting that it would improve “every few weeks”.

And, indeed, the vocal Google fanbase didn’t linger much before giving feedback, with ideas deemed as “really good suggestions” by Uberti himself. Among those, apparently, is Allo’s startling lack of an audio calling feature — included in popular apps like WhatsApp, among others — especially considering that its dedicated companion app, Duo, essentially does just that.

Duo is actually a video calling app, technically, but the convenience of audio calling in situations where video is not practical should not be left unconsidered, and apparently Uberti thinks so as well. When suggested by Twitter user Cyril Lucas that Allow get either Duo integration or a proper, in-built function, the Googler said “absolutely”.

Now, it would certainly have been weird for the Allo team not to realize this by themselves, and chances are that the feature may already be in the works, and was held back simply because it wasn’t ready for launch. However, Uberti’s “confirmation” is indeed encouraging, and will hopefully mean that we’re not even that far from being able to call other people with Allo.

As things stand, in fact, the app is a pretty barebones experience, which despite being riddled with stickers and text-resizing-on-the-go features, has pretty much nothing compelling enough to convince people to switch to it. With no desktop client and the service limited to just one device, you can only go so far — almost literally —, no matter how smart Google Assistant is.