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Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

blog.whatsapp.com

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Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#81

Post by ars »

ignoramous wrote: post #71
tostitos1979 wrote: post #62

Why is Facebook/WhatsApp doing the tether to the phone crap? I have a few seniors in the family who have no need of a cellphone (stay at home most of the time). Everyone else in the family uses WhatsApp and these poor people are left out of the look. It is completely stupid as far as I can see. What is the phone requirement buying them?

Remember that there is no sign up, and that your mobile (phone number once registered via SMS OTP) is the only client their servers can trust. Imagine a scenario where you were to get rid of the phone number and had sessions open on the desktop and the web. WhatsApp servers have no way of knowing where the phone number went or if it will be online ever again or if you continue to own the phone number, or someone else…

That doesn't explain them actively blocking google voice numbers.

Or home phone numbers (landlines) for that matter. Let people use a landline number on a tablet.

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#82

Post by tonybaroneee »

tim333 wrote: post #16
jeffjose wrote: post #2

No linux version. I was almost convinced that this was going to be another Electron app (after slack went that route)

I recommend Franz ( http://meetfranz.com/ ). Does Whatsapp, works on Linux, mac, pc. Supports Slack, WeChat, HipChat, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Google Hangouts, GroupMe and Skype.

Thanks, this looks amazing!

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#83

Post by cft »

ars wrote: post #80
cft wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Messages are not deleted from the server. They are probably stored there in the encryped form. When I open the web version of WhatsApp, same images and the message history that i have on my phone get downloaded there. I highly doubt that they rely on my phone as the only master storage of that data and upload all images into the web version from it?

Actually yes, that is exactly what they do: Download everything from the phone.

Including 2MB images in the conversation? Has someone verified this by looking at the traffic?

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#84

Post by Lx1oG-AWb6h_ZG0 »

ars wrote: post #81
ignoramous wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember that there is no sign up, and that your mobile (phone number once registered via SMS OTP) is the only client their servers can trust. Imagine a scenario where you were to get rid of the phone number and had sessions open on the desktop and the web. WhatsApp servers have no way of knowing where the phone number went or if it will be online ever again or if you continue to own the phone number, or someone else…

That doesn't explain them actively blocking google voice numbers. Or home phone numbers (landlines) for that matter. Let people use a landline number on a tablet.

I've had it working perfectly well with my google voice number for years now. When did they start blocking it?

The only problem I recall is that the initial text verification doesn't work - I had to do the phone call option - but this is a problem with gvoice, not WhatsApp: google blocks pretty much all server-triggered texts.

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#85

Post by jdavis703 »

mst wrote: post #72
cheez wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WhatsApp was bought for $19 billion. You could probably pay $1 billion and get a couple of different systems that worked well enough to replace WhatsApp.

Having read the engineering posts about their core systems I think you're being wildly optimistic in the same way as people who think "writing a general CMS can't be that hard, I'll just write my own" are.

You could build 17.2 WhatsApps for $1 billion, assuming that it took nothing more and nothing less than the $58 million in funding they raised: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/whatsapp#/entity.

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#86

Post by witty_username »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #3

Nice. Maybe with this I can convince my friends to move over to WhatsApp from Google Hangouts. The lack of desktop app support for Hangouts has been driving me nuts.

Why do you need desktop app support for Hangouts? You can install the extension.

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#87

Post by aadilmfarooqui »

tszming wrote: post #74
tostitos1979 wrote: post #62

Why is Facebook/WhatsApp doing the tether to the phone crap? I have a few seniors in the family who have no need of a cellphone (stay at home most of the time). Everyone else in the family uses WhatsApp and these poor people are left out of the look. It is completely stupid as far as I can see. What is the phone requirement buying them?

This is what Facebook Messenger is designed for, they don't necessarily need to compete with each other.

I agree. The actual usage with what they have captured the market is free texting and moving forward now they have voice messages too. So they don't really need a desktop app. Simply if one has to use it on PC, WhatsApp Web is a great feature and it does exist for the single session only.

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#88

Post by pritambaral »

acchow wrote: post #57
pritambaral wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Extract the web.whatsapp tab into its own window and now you can command-tab to it. ---- Plus, on my OS at least, I can even search for the window by its title. That, combined with workspaces, is an organizer's godsend.

This isn't how cmd+tab works on a Mac. Do you mean alt+tab in Windows?

I don't really treat cmd+tab and cmd+` very differently, sorry. On my OS, both work: I can alt-` to cycle through windows of same application and alt+tab to cycle through each individual window (grouped by application); maybe that's given me the habit of treating alt+` merely as a filter on alt+tab.

Oh! This is perhaps also why I get annoyed by cmd+tab on Macs!!

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#89

Post by magazinelala »

ignoramous wrote: post #71
tostitos1979 wrote: post #62

Why is Facebook/WhatsApp doing the tether to the phone crap? I have a few seniors in the family who have no need of a cellphone (stay at home most of the time). Everyone else in the family uses WhatsApp and these poor people are left out of the look. It is completely stupid as far as I can see. What is the phone requirement buying them?

Remember that there is no sign up, and that your mobile (phone number once registered via SMS OTP) is the only client their servers can trust. Imagine a scenario where you were to get rid of the phone number and had sessions open on the desktop and the web. WhatsApp servers have no way of knowing where the phone number went or if it will be online ever again or if you continue to own the phone number, or someone else…

Telegram also relies on phone numbers, and you need them to just to log in. You can log in once and stay logged forever on your computer without ever touching your phone again.

Whatsapp makes you to stay connected at the same time on your phone to use their web/desktop apps.

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#90

Post by magazinelala »

NiekvdMaas wrote: post #77
tim333 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recommend Franz ( http://meetfranz.com/ ). Does Whatsapp, works on Linux, mac, pc. Supports Slack, WeChat, HipChat, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Google Hangouts, GroupMe and Skype.

This is just a wrapper for web clients of the "protocols" they support. So WhatsApp is web.whatsapp.com in a tab, Skype is web.skype.com, etc.

Way to undermine the hard work of talented developers. Is that envy? You should see all the features its offer before calling it just a "wrapper".
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