How about introducing open protocols instead?
Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App
121–130 of 228 posts
Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App
#122Why 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…
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Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you need desktop app support for Hangouts? You can install the extension.
Because I can't cmd-tab to it. Because it brings every Chrome window to front if I just want to read a message. Because it floats on top of Chrome whenever it's open. Because I can't easily move it between monitors, or to a different part of the screen. It's also really rubbish at uploading files. Why can't I drag and drop? And how about search? You're Google ffs. Why do I have to go to Gmail to search Hangouts, inst…
> Because it brings every Chrome window to front if I just want to read a message
Are you using a Mac by any chance?
Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App
#124Nice. 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.
Hangouts does have a Chrome app (not extension, but app). Which runs in a pop-up mode and gives a user interface similar to android.
Also, it starts up with your operating system with a floating icon which stays at top of the windows if you want, and provides notifications. Your friends can use that if they want to stick to hangouts.
[Hangouts Chrome App](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-hangouts/nc...)
Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
How could then sync end-to-end encrypted messages?
Sender encrypts same message several times, one for each receiver device. Store them the same way they store today. When the first device picks up the message, mark as delivered, when the user reads it, mark as read. Something along those lines, I guess. EDIT: message is encrypted, but not it's metadata, as the server must know where it came from and where it is going to.
Considering how much information about a subject is inferrable by means of metadata only, I'd say this is a much better solution, security wise.
Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Monetization strategy is what's stopping Whatsapp. Eventually, there will be an official API so business can hook CRMs to clients' Whatsapp accounts. However, FB is first trying that with Messenger API/bots. I assume Whatsapp API/bots comes next. FB did not pay billions for the most popular chat app just to let 1 billion people use it for free forever...
Free? Every WhatsApp user paid Facebook on day one with the contents of their address book and how frequently one person contacts another. This is of huge value if your business model is exactly to gather this kind of data.
All the talk about encryption and privacy seems to ignore this basic point. Association can be dangerous and this does not protect people from exposing themselves in that way.
Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App
#127Why 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?
It's required because your phone is where your messages are stored.
Whatsapp don't retain messages/media after they've been delivered to your phone, which is a compelling privacy feature for many.
It's also what allows them to serve such an enormous user base with limited hardware. Their technology stack (FreeBSD/Erlang) is pretty interesting, more info here:
2014 talks by Rick Reed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c12cYAUTXXs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TneLO5TdW_M
Slides:
http://www.erlang-factory.com/static/upload/media/1394350183...
There's likely no technical reason why you couldn't use a pc instead of a phone for users that want to use the pc as the primary client (with the phone optionally accessing the DB on the pc in the same way that the desktop client does for the phone). Perhaps they've decided that this is a small and declining market.
Edit:
Slides for second talk
http://www.slideshare.net/iXsystems/rick-reed-600-m-unsuspec...
440k connections/sec, 1.1 million msgs/sec, 1 billion images/day, and that was in 2014...
Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App
#128No linux version. I was almost convinced that this was going to be another Electron app (after slack went that route)
Yeah, no use to me either, althogh I did recently upgrade my windows 7 vm to windows 10 (there's no windows 7 version either). Very odd.
Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App
#129Even if it's "just a wrapper" the native notifications are worth it for me. I really wish iMessage would have a web view like WhatsApp that you can just open on another computer though. Even if it's not a Mac.
Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App
#130When I saw this I was excited that maybe I could finally switch from Telegram. But no, it's tethered. I don't want to have to always make sure my phone is charged and with signal. I really don't get it. I get they can't do it the telegram way, by storing plaintext on the server. However I don't get why they can't do it like iMessage and encrypt the messages with each registered device's key. Perhaps moxie can explain…
This is what I love about fb messenger over whatsapp. You can use it on your pc even without your cellphone. This dependency on the mobile makes no sense at all. It kills half the usecase.