Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App • Hacker News Board

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#171

Post by dingo_bat » Wed, May 11, 2016, 10:11 AM UTC

haphazardeous wrote: post #168

haphazardeous wrote: post #167

Since when it became fashionable to use a wrapper of your web site? "Because the app runs natively on your desktop, you'll have support for native desktop notifications, better keyboard shortcuts, and more." I think Firefox is perfectly capable of doing any of those. I just hate it someone comes up and says 'Look we built a native app' I'm sorry but no you haven't! If I wanted to use your web page I can do that I don…

This app is so native neither CMD + W nor CMD + SHIFT + W closes the Whatsapp window - yay!

Alt+F4 works perfectly.

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#172

Post by xorcist » Wed, May 11, 2016, 10:11 AM UTC

pimeys wrote: post #109

magazinelala wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

WhatsApp doesn't store messages on their servers, which is one of those features I really like in a privacy point of view. Signal does the same, its web app only loads the messages from your phone and they are not stored to any servers.

Doesn't that mean you can't carry on a conversation on another device?

It seems that was the main reason people didn't like Jabber to start with.

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#173

Post by dingo_bat » Wed, May 11, 2016, 10:13 AM UTC

NetStrikeForce wrote: post #33

sanjeetsuhag wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the same way. Just build an independent app already. Telegram did it well. What's stopping WhatsApp ?

As kawera said two comments above yours: Their servers do not store unencrypted messages so they need to come from the phone. ---- That's why some people criticise Telegram: Their messages have to be stored unencrypted for their setup to work.

AFAIK Apple Message implements encryption and has independent clients. So I think the problem can be solved with some effort.

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#174

Post by dingo_bat » Wed, May 11, 2016, 10:16 AM UTC

Strom wrote: post #11

Windows 8 minimum? Is this an UWP app or what's the reasoning here? Edit: I downloaded and successfully launched this on Windows 7. It seems like a standard Electron app. Now I wonder if the Windows 8 requirement is purely for tech support reasons, or if there's some specific feature that would fail on Windows 7.

I guess they do not want to officially support an OS (win7) which is on extended support from the manufacturer.

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#175

Post by max_ » Wed, May 11, 2016, 10:22 AM UTC

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?

From personal experience, I cannot agree more. These editions are completely useless.

If the Whatsapp team actually tracked the rate of user engagement with these Desktop/Web editions & compared this to the Smartphone/Tablet apps. They would agree with you.

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#176

Post by takno » Wed, May 11, 2016, 10:25 AM UTC

tuxracer wrote: post #22

takno wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome has that sorted already on android, where you can run up a site with a home screen link, different icon and separate listing in the task list. Given the work they've recently put in on full screen mode on desktop it looks like they're maybe a couple of versions away from having something similar on desktop

Actually they're removing it on Android even :(

They're actively adding features. It's a little more complex than it used to be with the manifest, and needing a service worker and encryption for a lot of features, but it's all still there

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#177

Post by corin_ » Wed, May 11, 2016, 10:30 AM UTC

max_ wrote: post #175

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?

From personal experience, I cannot agree more. These editions are completely useless. If the Whatsapp team actually tracked the rate of user engagement with these Desktop/Web editions & compared this to the Smartphone/Tablet apps. They would agree with you.

It's quite a leap to go from your personal anecdotal experience to assuming that the data of hundreds of millions of people must be the same as your experience and was just ignored.

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#178

Post by pablovidal85 » Wed, May 11, 2016, 10:31 AM UTC

joeyspn wrote: post #155

Why is the app closing completely if I press 'x'? wouldn't be much better to stay in background mode like Slack does (well and many other chat clients)? It's annoying... I'll keep using my custom wrapper with NW.js (apparently this uses electron) until this behaviour is implemented...

For mac users there's ChitChat[0], it behaves as expected. In fact I'm not switching to the official WhatsApp desktop release until this issue is properly fixed.

[0] https://github.com/stonesam92/ChitChat

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#179

Post by ascorbic » Wed, May 11, 2016, 10:34 AM UTC

reitanqild wrote: post #147

ascorbic wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, hence cmd-tab.

Ok, then that is the reason for the issues you see but you probably already knew. Edit: removed lots of unnecessary text : )

It's only the reason for it inasmuch as Hangouts is implemented in a way that behaves like this on Mac. It's not as if it's an inherent property of the OS.

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#180

Post by max_ » Wed, May 11, 2016, 10:39 AM UTC

corin_ wrote: post #177

max_ wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From personal experience, I cannot agree more. These editions are completely useless. If the Whatsapp team actually tracked the rate of user engagement with these Desktop/Web editions & compared this to the Smartphone/Tablet apps. They would agree with you.

It's quite a leap to go from your personal anecdotal experience to assuming that the data of hundreds of millions of people must be the same as your experience and was just ignored.

I think you misunderstood me. I was talking about MY case. Not "hundreds of millions of people"