#Post5: Hike v/s WhatsApp v/s Allo - all you would like to know

After few posts related to science, lifestyle, events and rain , it's time for post on technology. First I would like to mention that though I am a computer engineer I am not a tech expert, this post is just for all the beginners who may be are youngsters with non technical background or middle age parents who just entered in world of smart phones. As the title suggest this post will give you brief introduction about hike , WhatsApp , and Allo.
Basically these all 3 are messaging apps through which you can connect with your friends and all you need is working mobile number and internet connection. There are some similarities as well as some differences between these apps. First we will see similarities and then go for differences or you can say uniqueness of these apps.

Similarities:-

1) As I said earlier these are all messaging apps for which you need a mobile number and internet connection. Well I said working mobile number because you need to receive code while opening your account. Many people have confusion that you can open account on only device which having sim card of mobile number you provide to open your account, but it's not true you can open it on any device which has internet connection and type the code which you received by sms or call on other device while opening account .

2) Message Status- All 3 apps provide status of your message as sent , delivered and read.

3) Groups- hike , Whatsapp as well as Allo provide service of group messaging.

4) Custom Notification for each contact.

Differences (Uniqueness) :-

1) Chat themes-
For WhatsApp you can set any image or solid colour as your chat theme but this theme remain same for all chats and the another person who is chatting with you can't see it.
In case of hike you can set different things for different chats and the theme is visible to both persons who are chatting . Even you can update theme while you are offline . With the latest updates you can also set image from your gallery as a theme.
And for Allo unfortunately I didn't find any option for theme.

2) Talking to App-
This facility is not there for WhatsApp.
For hike it's in the form of hike online or Natasha a chat window where you can send messages and get reply by the system. It can also identify stickers and can reply you with the same.
For Allo it's called Google Assistant - the best thing with this App. Many people compare it with Siri or Cortana. As Google has its own search engine and it is some what associated with this you can get immediate results as response for your query. Even it can detect emojis for example I have send bank building emoji and assistant send me list of all nearby banks as a reply. Only the thing with assistant is it can't recognize stickers yet.

3) Stickers-
Except Whatsapp both hike and Allo have their own set of stickers. In case of hike as it is a Indian App, it has more number of stickers according to moods , foods , festivals and different languages in India.

4) Supported Languages and App keyboard-
WhatsApp and Allo don't ask you choose your language while setting account but sometimes hike does. You can chat on Whatsapp n allo using different keyboards for your language but they don't have keyboards provided by app but as there are various languages used in India hike provide 8 different keyboards for 8 languages -

5) Voice messages and Calling-
Both whatsApp and hike provide this facility but hike provide extra feature of calling in group which is not there in WhatsApp. Allo have voice message feature but doesn't have calling feature.

6) Incognito mode or hidden chats and encryption -
Incognito mode of Allo provide you encrypted chats where also you can set expiry for messages i.e after expiry time messages will disappear. Hidden notification is there for Incognito mode chats (like instead of actual message you just see "you received a message " in notification bar.
In case of Whatsapp all chats are encrypted , you have option of "archive chat" but no hidden mode.
For hike it's even better you can hide some of chats by setting password and you have to tap on "hi" symbol followed with password to access these chats. Hidden notification is also there for hidden chats. There is option to select whether you want to encrypt or not.

4) Last Seen ,privacy settings and delivered at:-
2-3 years ago it was compulsory thing in WhatsApp that anyone who saved your number can see your dp and last seen . Later they introduce only those people who have saved your number can see your dp ( I guess that was just trial for one day) and then it lead to update having setting for dp , last seen and status as nobody , my contacts and everyone.
In hike earlier there was concept of favorite (selected contacts only) which is now replaced with "friends". Earlier there was option for seen to favorite , my contacts , nobody and everyone. Now it's just friends and nobody and you need to add contact as a friend if you want to chat but you can set dp n status setting different for individual contact that is you can off status updates for particular person even if you added him as a friend.
In Allo I didn't find concept of putting status as well as any privacy settings. The good thing is there is no concept of last seen in Allo.

5) Offline messages-
You can send offline message (as SMS) on hike if the recipient is offline that is unable to use internet. You earn these free SMS as you use hike more and more. You can also send messages to those who are not using hike.
No such thing for WhatsApp you need internet all the time.
In Allo it shows you that you are sending message to person on sms but when I tried it didn't worked.

6) Media Sharing-
Long before Whatsapp start providing sharing of documents hike was already having this feature that to of sharing media upto 100Mb size. Now you can share documents , images and videos through whatsApp and any kind of files , documents , images and videos through hike. Plus point in hike is you can choose file size to be send i.e original size or compressed media. While in Allo you can only send images.

7) Timeline-
Hike provide timeline ,a place where you can see all status updates from your friends just like fb. Whatsapp you don't have timeline but can view status by viewing particular contact.


8) Ink or editors for image-
Whatsapp don't have this feature while allo provide ink for images . Hike provide crop, filters, and draw options while image sharing and updating your profile photo.

And finally what we all love

9) Games and Coupons -
Both Allo and hike provide number of games. Allo gives you different variety of games and different option through Assistant but all these games are online . Hike provide some games but once you download it (size in kb s so it's a small download) you can play it offline too.

So, these are some features of all these App. Each app is unique in its own. I want to tell that I am not comparing these apps like who is better than whom but just giving information about different features. Personally I would definitely like if in future we get app which have Assistant like Allo, hidden chats, stickers, media sharing and timeline like hike and some other features like WhatsApp , for example different games from allo using hike offline feature. It will be a great combination and will definitely more popular if we combine best feature of each App into one App. If you find this post useful and like this post then do share to with more people.

Update(26/11/16): WhatsApp and Hike now introduced new video calling feature. Hike has removed timeline (&status update) feature and introduced new "hike stories" feature.