A report from several days ago suggested that Google’s Allo messaging app could become the default messaging app on Android. It was even suggested that Google could slowly phase Hangouts and Messenger out in favor of Allo being the main app that handles chats, SMS, and more.
However that might not be the case. A report from XDA Developers has revealed that Google will not be phasing out Hangouts or Messenger. Their source informed them that both Hangouts and Messenger are here to stay, and that for now, Google has no plans of making Allo cross-app, meaning that Allo will only be able to receive Allo messages, and not SMS or Hangouts messages.
This is in line with what Google had mentioned earlier when they announced Allo, that Hangouts would not be going anywhere. However given how feature-rich Allo is, and its built-in Google Assistant capabilities, we guess it wasn’t really a stretch to think that Google might be interested in building the “ultimate” app for messaging, one that might be able to overthrow WhatsApp, iMessage, BBM, and so on.
In any case so far the Android Nougat previews have not shown any signs that Allo will be replacing Hangouts or Messenger, so for now if you do prefer keeping your apps separate from each other, you can rest easy knowing nothing will change, at least for now.