{"id":165546,"date":"2016-05-18T20:08:57","date_gmt":"2016-05-18T18:08:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=165546"},"modified":"2016-05-18T20:32:21","modified_gmt":"2016-05-18T18:32:21","slug":"google-unveils-whatsapp-competitor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/software\/165546-google-unveils-whatsapp-competitor.html","title":{"rendered":"Google unveils WhatsApp competitor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Google has unveiled a new messaging app which is set to compete against the likes of WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.<\/p>\n<p>The app is called Allo, and will be available in the coming months for free on Android and iOS.<\/p>\n<p>What sets Allo apart is that it will feature a built-in Google assistant. This will let users get information from Google by sending messages to it using the handle @google.<\/p>\n<p>It will answer questions, engage the user in conversation, and suggest further searches.\u00a0Users can also play games with the Google assistant, such as &#8220;guess the movie&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Allo takes its intelligence a step further when you receive a message from a contact, and will suggest replies &#8211; called &#8220;suggestion chips&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>These suggestions are based on images or text received from a contact in a message.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Mobile only<\/h3>\n<p>The app is mobile-only and works off your mobile phone number. Users are also able to connect their Google account to the app, although this is not compulsory.<\/p>\n<p>Google said another standout feature is &#8220;WhisperShout&#8221;, which lets users change the size of the text in their message before they send it by dragging their finger up or down.<\/p>\n<p>Send and receive indicators, emoji, custom stickers, and image sending are all standard features with Allo.<\/p>\n<p>Allo will also offer conversation encryption and an\u00a0Incognito Mode, like in the Chrome browser.<\/p>\n<p>Incognito Mode will encrypt conversations end-to-end and disallow Google from accessing the messages in any form.<\/p>\n<p><a  data-lightbox=\"post-image\" href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Allo.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-165560\" src=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Allo.png\" alt=\"Allo\" width=\"280\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Allo.png 358w, https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Allo-241x430.png 241w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 280px) 100vw, 280px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More on Google<\/h3>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/software\/164940-new-google-keyboard-for-your-apple-iphone.html\">New Google keyboard for your Apple iPhone<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/software\/164818-google-translate-updated-for-android-smartphones.html\">Google Translate updated for Android smartphones<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Google has unveiled a new messaging app which is set to compete against the likes of WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":165548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[167,37264,35,2594],"class_list":["post-165546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-software","tag-google","tag-google-allo","tag-headline","tag-whatsapp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165546"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}