101–110 of 137 posts
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imo.im on iOS works perfectly fine with google talk and i receive messages when it's not running as well.
imo.im is a web service, not a raw XMPP client.
How do apps like WhatsApp get popular? They offer inferior service in every way to builtins, and require that both parties have installed something. SMS is in every way better unless you don't have a texting plan, in that case, GTalk and iMessage are in every way better (And GTalk is even cross platform with several fairly simple XMPP clients on IOS). Who uses this shit? I encountered the same thing recently with Rai…
iMessage doesn't work for non-iOS phones. Annoyingly, GTalk doesn't have an official client on iOS. SMSes can get expensive.
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Thanks. I imagine this varies a lot with app category/demographic. I'm not a gamer, but I've heard that many gamers have a large, ongoing appetite for new games, and perhaps this makes them more sensitive to price. Even a $0.99 price tag can seem high if you want to play a half dozen new games every month. Meanwhile, a non-gamer who downloads that many apps in a whole year might not mind paying as much. Also, gamers…
Jailbreaks can destabilize your phone on iOS. From what I understand, pirating android apps usually requires no modification of your phone's OS.
There's an interesting subtext here about demographics:
As mentioned above, it would seem that games are more vulnerable to piracy due to the broad audience (lowest common denominator) and lack of "necessity" (games may appear trivial and thus not worth paying for to some). Productivity-linked apps such as Instapaper, Omnifocus, and Day One seem to grab paying users with less difficulty.
Additionally, there's been some commentary around Android vs. iOS users being willing to pay for apps. The argument is that Apple was rather successful in targeting an audience who tend to be more willing to pay for applications. As a contrast, it's argued that Android users tend to prefer free software.
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App piracy is actually a substantial issue on both stores: On Android, sideloading of apps from unauthorized sources (not the store), and frail DRM makes piracy really easy. The US government has been targeting these sources[1], but as you can imagine, there are many. Some have said that Android app piracy may be up to 60%[2], but I think there's some sample bias in these figures and suspect it's a fair bit lower. On…
Thanks. I imagine this varies a lot with app category/demographic. I'm not a gamer, but I've heard that many gamers have a large, ongoing appetite for new games, and perhaps this makes them more sensitive to price. Even a $0.99 price tag can seem high if you want to play a half dozen new games every month. Meanwhile, a non-gamer who downloads that many apps in a whole year might not mind paying as much. Also, gamers…
I guess it varies by region- I've seen lots of phone shops in Taiwan offering "JB" as their main service. In Germany, I've only ever heard of commercial jailbreaking services for the Xbox and Wii (which used to involve soldering).
Also, my $2 hobby iPhone game has hundreds of Chinese players after only selling one copy in China, according to iTunes Connect. In other regions it's a non-issue.
I've been seriously considering creating a highly secure text messaging replacement. I'm aware of TextSecure but find it lacking (and only available on Android). I'd love to hear if you guys think it would be a worthwhile project.
You could make one but the audience would have almost no cross-over with WhatsApp. Your app would have a nice geeky audience of tech nerds who would drool over how secure it is and how smart they are. WhatsApp on the other hand "just works." It requires zero setup, zero technical understanding, and is available on almost every platform (at least the "biggies" anyway). I would say its audience is teenagers, and the le…
How do apps like WhatsApp get popular? They offer inferior service in every way to builtins, and require that both parties have installed something. SMS is in every way better unless you don't have a texting plan, in that case, GTalk and iMessage are in every way better (And GTalk is even cross platform with several fairly simple XMPP clients on IOS). Who uses this shit? I encountered the same thing recently with Rai…
How do apps like WhatsApp get popular? They offer inferior service in every way to builtins, and require that both parties have installed something. SMS is in every way better unless you don't have a texting plan, in that case, GTalk and iMessage are in every way better (And GTalk is even cross platform with several fairly simple XMPP clients on IOS). Who uses this shit? I encountered the same thing recently with Rai…
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NAVER Line is also currently killing it in this space in Japan, Korea and other nearby places.. Their business model started as "free but sell extra stickers to send to your friends", but now they have critical mass it seems they're setting up some kind of social network.. But a piece at a time by making an app at a time. Their Photo sharing app is gaining ground, as is their "diary" (read: timeline) app.
Since Marchish this year I've found Naver's LINE to be really unreliable though. Messages delayed days or hours, etc. I'm surprised it's still growing if this is the case for more than just me.
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WhatsApp is not free to use. iOS users are charged a flat 99c fee while Android users are charged 1$ a year from the second year onwards. I do not know how secure Viber is but they have been steadilu acquiring good user base. If I was Viber, I would cash on this opportunity to write a blog or advertise their security models.
I' ve been using WhatsApp well over a year on Android. I got a free renewal in june. Never paid a cent.