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WhatsApp doesn't understand the web

andregarzia.com

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Re: WhatsApp doesn't understand the web

#21

Post by k-mcgrady »

iagooar wrote: post #14

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 a…

>> "Besides, am I the only one who suspects that Whatsapp is boycotting Apple?"

I understand the theory but all this does is hurt them. They need as many people as possible using there app for it be useful. They're also owned by Facebook who update all their apps weekly.

Re: WhatsApp doesn't understand the web

#22

Post by icebraining »

Kurtz79 wrote: post #16
DanBC wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Android and iOS have more than 95% market share of the smartphones market. Plenty of people access the web with feature phones. In fact, that's why Whatsapp has clients for Nokia S60 and S40.

Re: WhatsApp doesn't understand the web

#23

Post by sschueller »

iagooar wrote: post #14

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 a…

Exactly, Telegram figured it out and it works fine.

Re: WhatsApp doesn't understand the web

#24

Post by Joona »

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.

I want to chat, and WhatsApp is not letting me do that.

Re: WhatsApp doesn't understand the web

#26

Post by pjc50 »

frabcus wrote: post #18

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 som…

Related discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8926644

It seems to be trying to keep the link between users and phone numbers as 1:1 as possible. This has a number of effects against bots and spam, ties in with matching users from other user's addressbooks etc. It's probably also bad for privacy/pseudonymity.

Re: WhatsApp doesn't understand the web

#27

Post by soapdog »

plextoria wrote: post #20
shawabawa3 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No it doesn't but it does have a public API, libraries and is friendly to third-party developers so nothing is stopping someone from creating a J2ME based client.

You can fetch source code from https://telegram.org/apps

Re: WhatsApp doesn't understand the web

#28

Post by smurfpandey »

iagooar wrote: post #14

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 a…

I think they are using web sockets or something which requires persistent connection between the phone and browser. Since on iOS, apps can't run in background this approach will not work on iOS.

Re: WhatsApp doesn't understand the web

#29

Post by soapdog »

eatonphil wrote: post #3

To be fair, the WeChat desktop client also requires that you scan a QR code from your smartphone to log in. I'm not defending WeChat, but it doesn't seem like the author knows WhatsApp is not alone there.

author here. I didn't knew about WeChat since it is not popular here in Brazil.

Using a QR to facilitate login is not a bad decision. Having this as the only method to authenticate makes it a bad client because it can't work as a standalone offering.

I don't like when "web clients" are not full featured in the sense of allowing registration and login. Look at Evernotes, you can register and use thru the web client interface, there is no need for the app if you're on a platform that is not supported.

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