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Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

windowslatest.com

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Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#371

Post by kridsdale1 »

iamcalledrob wrote: post #126

As the person who designed and fought for this app, I am a bit sad about the change. The native app was by no means perfect, but it felt like a real productivity tool that was trying to be respectful of it's environment. I've come to the conclusion that native desktop apps are just not viable from large companies, even if there is headcount. The problem is coordination cost. If you want to launch new features and exp…

I made Facebook and FB Messenger for Windows. It was considered a complete failure by management as it never got above 1% of the usage by windows users vs the website.

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#372

Post by whatsupdog »

egl2020 wrote: post #14
whatsupdog wrote: post #5

For someone who travels a lot, I would love to have the ability to have WhatsApp on multiple phones (like telegram). I have a separate phone for traveling to US/Canada, which I usually wipe clean before crossing. It's really cumbersome to backup/restore Whatsapp messages from one phone to another. Or I just lose the messages that I send/receive while traveling.

What do you put on the cleaned phone?

I have all my data and passwords etc., mostly on nextcloud at my home. After crossing the border I login into whatever accounts I need to and download whatever files I need. When it's time to cross again, I do a factory reset.

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#373

Post by kridsdale1 »

rvz wrote: post #369
csoups14 wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a skill issue, it's an organizational issue. The engineers at Meta are world class but they're nerfed by organizational constraints.

> It's not a skill issue, it's an organizational issue. We can say that for the majority of companies with large teams that already have this. Everyone knows Meta is no different. In this case, it's a skill issue to ship low quality software which is what whoever that team at Meta just did and knowingly approved. > The engineers at Meta are world class but they're nerfed by organizational constraints. That doesn't me…

It is a management failure 100%. It doesn’t matter how good you engineers are when they are punished for doing good work and rewarded for shipping garbage.

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#374

Post by whatsupdog »

lxn wrote: post #12
whatsupdog wrote: post #5

For someone who travels a lot, I would love to have the ability to have WhatsApp on multiple phones (like telegram). I have a separate phone for traveling to US/Canada, which I usually wipe clean before crossing. It's really cumbersome to backup/restore Whatsapp messages from one phone to another. Or I just lose the messages that I send/receive while traveling.

You can install Whatsapp on up to four or five devices. There one main device, and the rest are "clients", exactly like the desktop apps. But they can send and receive messages even when the main device is offline.

I was under the impression that they all must be on the same wifi.

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#375

Post by eptcyka »

psychoslave wrote: post #147
eptcyka wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mobile is where the users are. Desktop users are vanishing before our eyes as a market segment.

For some application certainly. Instant messaging of course has many strong point in term of what is to be dealt with. Short messages, photos, quick visios. But to edit large document, visualize any large corpus with side by side comparison, unless we plug our mobile on a large screen, a keyboard and some arrow pointer handler, there is no real sane equivalent to work with on mobile.

Yeah, but the majority of people who would've been daily desktop or at least laptop users some 10 to 15 years ago now make do with a phone. Most people do not need to visualize any large corpus or edit large documents. Similarly, there's a great deal of phone users who's first interaction with computers was via a smartphone.

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#376

Post by Jotalea »

to be honest, both the old web-based and the previous native apps were equally bad. I don't have too many memories of the old web-based app, but I remember perfectly fine that performing a simple contact search on a quite powerful laptop (Ryzen 7 3700U, 12GB RAM) took 5 entire seconds to type 1 letter, and it made the laptop feel like it was running on an Intel Pentium.

meanwhile, the web-based version in the browser was nearly instant.

I should try the new web-based app to perform benchmarks, but I think I'll just keep using the browser.

I'll also mention, the "whatsapp web" website is extremely resource intensive, and in my laptop it makes the CPU usage ramp up to 100% very often, and using WhatsApp while having any other programs or even browser tabs open becomes unbelievably annoying. the desktop takes 700MB, the web browser takes 400MB, and WhatsApp web takes at least 1GB alone. this is on Arch Linux, with 4GB of DDR4 RAM.

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#377

Post by tcfhgj »

whatsupdog wrote: post #374
lxn wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can install Whatsapp on up to four or five devices. There one main device, and the rest are "clients", exactly like the desktop apps. But they can send and receive messages even when the main device is offline.

I was under the impression that they all must be on the same wifi.

this isn't the case anymore, now they are independent clients

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#378

Post by throw32435678 »

g-mork wrote: post #135
iamcalledrob wrote: post #126

As the person who designed and fought for this app, I am a bit sad about the change. The native app was by no means perfect, but it felt like a real productivity tool that was trying to be respectful of it's environment. I've come to the conclusion that native desktop apps are just not viable from large companies, even if there is headcount. The problem is coordination cost. If you want to launch new features and exp…

You're in a very unique position to render a great public service just now - could you point in the direction of the secret storage used for the database key on Windows? I tried to locate it before but could not. Since that DB is about to be bricked it'd be real nice to export from it imminently

[dead]

Re: Meta replaces WhatsApp for Windows with web wrapper

#379

Post by andy_ppp »

andy_ppp wrote: post #27
eviks wrote: post #16

> WhatsApp is one of those Windows apps that went from being a web wrapper to a native app and then back to the web again after all these years of investment. We often hear stories about the speed of development and the issues of maintaining native apps, and then there are these rewrites every few years. Don't they waste more resources vs. creating / fixing the gaps in the native app? And this isn't somes quick start…

It’s probably a coup internally and some idiot who sucked up to the right people made a load of bad technical decisions. But at least they got promoted!

I’m pretending to myself this has largely got so many upvotes from the accused persons colleagues :-D
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