Google had a really good chat app in Hangouts, which for some inexplicable reason was shunted aside in favour of
Allo. And it certainly didn't help matters much when the search giant said it's
suspending development of Allo by going all in for SMS and
Rich Communication Services, helping carriers adopt
Chat, a new messaging protocol built on the foundation of
Messages, which currently also doubles up as an RCS client for Android. As part of that transition, Google has announced a
desktop version today, allowing users to send and receive texts from their computers through the web app. Accessible online at
https://messages.android.com/ via Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari or Microsoft Edge, it works by scanning the QR code on the webpage to sync your conversations and cache them in the browser. Google also says that if the web app is not used for 14 days, it
automatically deletes the data from the browser for security reasons. Android Messages for web may be no iMessage (the conversations are not tied your Google ID, at least for now), but it's a
step in the right direction for a company that has consistently failed to
adopt a clear-cut messaging strategy.
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