Citation needed; I'd certainly love to know whether J2ME devices were a significant chunk of WhatsApp's actives, but there's zero data to back up the suggestion..
Yeah, all those people in India and Africa use latest Iphone :-)
Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App
51–60 of 239 posts
Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
As of today: Smartphones outsold feature phones for this first time ever in India. http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/samsung-smartphones-outse... From my personal experiences, international countries that have smartphone adoption use Viber, and the feature phone countries use WhatsApp.
Singapore is a Smartphone country, but Whatsapp is pretty dominant there. (I didn't run into anyone who didn't use it as their primary messaging platform)
Same up here in Malaysia. In fact, it's starting to look like the only places that isn't dominated by WhatsApp are America and China.
Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
It absolutely makes sense to work on a J2ME app today if you have a product aimed at developing nations. They won't be swimming in smartphones any time soon.
Low end Android phones are approaching feature phones in price.
They are already cheaper than feature phones! At least in India : http://tinyurl.com/la5g2ou
Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App
#54J2ME is interesting. Each phone supported Java Specification Requests (JSRs) and you could look up which JSRs a phone supported. For example, JSR82 is some Bluetooth supporty thing.
The real problem was that between different phones and JSRs, some implementations were really bad (I remember having a Nokia 6500slide with dodgy implementations) and varied between phone models. This was especially odd on Nokia phones considering that there were hundreds of phones running S40 or S60 and yet there were differences between those phones. (If I recall correctly, I had a 5200 and 5300 and there were differences between them). Highly unreliable.
But $16bn unreliable for testing? Not sure. Well done for getting bought though.
Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
WhatsApp is also really strong here in Germany and other parts of Europe. More of my friends are on WhatsApp than Facebook (only very few more though).
These numbers are going to drop significantly now. Everyone I talk to is unhappy about the acquisition and will switch to something else like telegram.
Unless everybody switches, few will switch. Network effects also create some pretty powerful stickiness.
Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the key of Firefox OS. Use well known technology and try to go into these markets.
My problem with Firefox OS is that they don't add any value over what is already possible in modern mobile OS. All of them have a web browser of some sort.
It's not about what is possible todo, it's about replacing feature phones in developing markets. They can't effort "cheap" androids, neither iphones. And if they get the money for an "cheap" android they don't have money for the development equipment.
Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App
#57reminds me about Sun buying StorageTek for 4B - a company whose technology and market had very visible end. J2ME on smartphones - basically an oxymoron if one knows why and how J2ME was designed 15 years ago - doesn't seem to be happening (despite predictable post-WhatsApp influx of crazy VC money into such combination in the next half year) and cheap $10-$20 smartphones are the next billions of devices.
Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App
#58The key success of Whatsapp is IMHO that it uses your phone's address book as contact list. There is no hurdle to use it what is very important for the average user.
The multi platform support from beginning is second thing. J2ME as stated in the article is negligible. I can't understand why this article is on top of HN.
Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App
#59J2ME is interesting. Each phone supported Java Specification Requests (JSRs) and you could look up which JSRs a phone supported. For example, JSR82 is some Bluetooth supporty thing. The real problem was that between different phones and JSRs, some implementations were really bad (I remember having a Nokia 6500slide with dodgy implementations) and varied between phone models. This was especially odd on Nokia phones co…
They aren't paying for a J2ME app and the requisite testing. They are paying for the results of the network effect made possible by it.
Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
WhatsApp is also really strong here in Germany and other parts of Europe. More of my friends are on WhatsApp than Facebook (only very few more though).
These numbers are going to drop significantly now. Everyone I talk to is unhappy about the acquisition and will switch to something else like telegram.
Unless Facebook actually puts their logo on WhatsApp, hardly anyone would notice. The tech community is minuscule compared to the large number of non-tech people using WhatsApp.