WhatsApp doesn't understand the web • Hacker News Board

Re: WhatsApp doesn't understand the web

#11

Post by ComputerGuru » Thu, Jan 22, 2015, 11:58 AM UTC

...and it seems you can't use this feature with an iPhone (yet?).

From their "web client": Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone, BlackBerry 10, and Nokia S60.

(In all fairness, my guess is it's pending acceptance of a newer version by the iOS/iTunes review team, but I really hope that's the case.)

EDIT: Scratch that. They're not providing it on iOS because of how convoluted their approach to a web client is. What they have to say: "Unfortunately for now, we will not be able to provide web client to our iOS users due to Apple platform limitations."

http://blog.whatsapp.com/614/WhatsApp-Web

Yeah, right.

Re: WhatsApp doesn't understand the web

#12

Post by mmsimanga » Thu, Jan 22, 2015, 11:58 AM UTC

Whilst the developer in me appreciates the sentiments expressed in the article I have to point out that to build and app that is used by over 700 millions users you have to be focussed on a fairly narrow set of features. You need to execute those features very well and WhatsApp delivers.

Re: WhatsApp doesn't understand the web

#13

Post by pjmlp » Thu, Jan 22, 2015, 11:59 AM UTC

vertex-four wrote: post #2

Umm. Obviously the web client is supposed to be used on the desktop, not on a phone. They have apps for phones. Doesn't excuse the Chrome-only-ness, though.

Chrome is the new IE.

The new web developers generation just replaced IE with Chrome.

Re: WhatsApp doesn't understand the web

#14

Post by iagooar » Thu, Jan 22, 2015, 12:05 PM UTC

I just don't get it. What is so difficult about providing a one-time authentication through the user's phone? Just open Whatsapp on the smartphone, get a token, put your phone number and token and voilà!

I mean, there have been web chats for decades now, so I don't understand why they invented such a messed up set of constraints.

Besides, am I the only one who suspects that Whatsapp is boycotting Apple? They needed almost 2 months to get an iOS 8 update out, now they are limiting the "web" application to non-Apple users...

Re: WhatsApp doesn't understand the web

#15

Post by zeroDivisible » Thu, Jan 22, 2015, 12:07 PM UTC

Joona wrote: post #4

vertex-four wrote: post #2

Umm. Obviously the web client is supposed to be used on the desktop, not on a phone. They have apps for phones. Doesn't excuse the Chrome-only-ness, though.

I have a Jolla (Sailfish) phone. I can not use the web client, because I need an Android, Windows or Blackberry phone. WhatsApp does however work fine on my phone (via Alien Dalvik). This "web client" is not actually a web client - it's just an app for your phone that you can display on your computer monitor.

A bit of an off-topic question - how would you rate Sailfish and it's interop with Android stuff?

Re: WhatsApp doesn't understand the web

#16

Post by Kurtz79 » Thu, Jan 22, 2015, 12:09 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #5

vertex-four wrote: post #2

Umm. Obviously the web client is supposed to be used on the desktop, not on a phone. They have apps for phones. Doesn't excuse the Chrome-only-ness, though.

There are phones that have WWW access that do not run Android or iOS. Whatsapp apps miss very many people who'd use it if they could.

Android and iOS have more than 95% market share.

http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-share.jsp

I suppose the benefits of supporting the remaining 5% against the costs of having to develop and mantain another client(s) have been discussed internally in Whatsapp.

"It would be nice" and "it would be commercially sound" are very different propostions.

Re: WhatsApp doesn't understand the web

#17

Post by shawabawa3 » Thu, Jan 22, 2015, 12:09 PM UTC

mmsimanga wrote: post #12

Whilst the developer in me appreciates the sentiments expressed in the article I have to point out that to build and app that is used by over 700 millions users you have to be focussed on a fairly narrow set of features. You need to execute those features very well and WhatsApp delivers.

Their original client works very well and was certainly the best im client at the time.

Now all that's keeping people there is network effect. Telegram is just better at this point, and it works on almost every platform with no weird restrictions

Re: WhatsApp doesn't understand the web

#18

Post by frabcus » Thu, Jan 22, 2015, 12:10 PM UTC

I'd love a technical explanation of how this works.

Are all the messages kept on the phone?

How does it relate to the Whisper Systems end to end encryption on the Android to Android version of WhatsApp?

Is there some relationship between the two - is this very bizarre web interface there because of constraints relating to privacy and encryption?

i.e. WhatsApp don't have your messages.

[Edit] Is it peer to peer in some fancy way - is it only for Chrome because it uses WebRTC or something?

Re: WhatsApp doesn't understand the web

#19

Post by Joona » Thu, Jan 22, 2015, 12:14 PM UTC

zeroDivisible wrote: post #15

Joona wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Jolla (Sailfish) phone. I can not use the web client, because I need an Android, Windows or Blackberry phone. WhatsApp does however work fine on my phone (via Alien Dalvik). This "web client" is not actually a web client - it's just an app for your phone that you can display on your computer monitor.

A bit of an off-topic question - how would you rate Sailfish and it's interop with Android stuff?

Sailfish itself is much better than anything I have ever used - it's clearly designed for touchscreens. For hackers it's awesome because it's actually a Linux, and you can access shell (as a root, too).

Android support is a bit buggy though - for example Skype sometimes breaks (can not send messages), but Spotify and WhatsApp have worked perfectly fine.

If you are interested in it, they dropped the price a while back (down to 250eur).

Re: WhatsApp doesn't understand the web

#20

Post by plextoria » Thu, Jan 22, 2015, 12:14 PM UTC

shawabawa3 wrote: post #17

mmsimanga wrote: post #12

Whilst the developer in me appreciates the sentiments expressed in the article I have to point out that to build and app that is used by over 700 millions users you have to be focussed on a fairly narrow set of features. You need to execute those features very well and WhatsApp delivers.

Their original client works very well and was certainly the best im client at the time. Now all that's keeping people there is network effect. Telegram is just better at this point, and it works on almost every platform with no weird restrictions

Does Telegram have an app for J2ME?