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Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

blog.whatsapp.com

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Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#71

Post by ignoramous »

tostitos1979 wrote: post #62

Why is Facebook/WhatsApp doing the tether to the phone crap? I have a few seniors in the family who have no need of a cellphone (stay at home most of the time). Everyone else in the family uses WhatsApp and these poor people are left out of the look. It is completely stupid as far as I can see. What is the phone requirement buying them?

Remember that there is no sign up, and that your mobile (phone number once registered via SMS OTP) is the only client their servers can trust.

Imagine a scenario where you were to get rid of the phone number and had sessions open on the desktop and the web. WhatsApp servers have no way of knowing where the phone number went or if it will be online ever again or if you continue to own the phone number, or someone else owns it. They need to route the msgs through that phone/number combination all the time, because it's the single source of truth.

Its security and privacy that's preventing them from providing the feature you're asking for.

If they detach individual user's identity from a phone number, may be then they can be a true cross platform (web, phone, desktop) messaging app.

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#72

Post by mst »

cheez wrote: post #68
andreasklinger wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i will make a wild guess and assume it has to do w/ legacy in their internal system most likely their internal system can only think in telephone numbers or something like that

WhatsApp was bought for $19 billion. You could probably pay $1 billion and get a couple of different systems that worked well enough to replace WhatsApp.

Having read the engineering posts about their core systems I think you're being wildly optimistic in the same way as people who think "writing a general CMS can't be that hard, I'll just write my own" are.

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#74

Post by tszming »

tostitos1979 wrote: post #62

Why is Facebook/WhatsApp doing the tether to the phone crap? I have a few seniors in the family who have no need of a cellphone (stay at home most of the time). Everyone else in the family uses WhatsApp and these poor people are left out of the look. It is completely stupid as far as I can see. What is the phone requirement buying them?

This is what Facebook Messenger is designed for, they don't necessarily need to compete with each other.

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#75

Post by philtar »

Touche wrote: post #56
Strom wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are misinformed. Microsoft even supports Vista, not to mention 7. [1] In addition, if XP support deadline extensions are anything to go by, then these Windows 7 end-of-support dates will get moved several times until they stick. Beyond that, Windows 7 remains by far the most popular Windows version, exceeding the combined market share of Windows 8, Windows 8.1 & Windows 10. [2][3] Unrelated to market share & OS u…

> You are misinformed. According to Wikipedia I'm not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7#Support_lifecycle "Mainstream support for 7 ended on January 13, 2015." I think it's reasonable that businesses don't support an OS version beyond the OS's provider's own "mainstream support". > Thus it's not that likely that Windows 7 wouldn't be supported by a Win32 app (which this is), unless they go out of their way to…

Literally 5 words later:

Extended support will end on January 14, 2020

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#76

Post by tostitos1979 »

ignoramous wrote: post #71
tostitos1979 wrote: post #62

Why is Facebook/WhatsApp doing the tether to the phone crap? I have a few seniors in the family who have no need of a cellphone (stay at home most of the time). Everyone else in the family uses WhatsApp and these poor people are left out of the look. It is completely stupid as far as I can see. What is the phone requirement buying them?

Remember that there is no sign up, and that your mobile (phone number once registered via SMS OTP) is the only client their servers can trust. Imagine a scenario where you were to get rid of the phone number and had sessions open on the desktop and the web. WhatsApp servers have no way of knowing where the phone number went or if it will be online ever again or if you continue to own the phone number, or someone else…

This doesn't make a whole lot of sense because people give up their phone numbers from time to time. I did this myself. My understanding is that someone who claims my number cannot access my past data. But if it is "stateless" then a phone number doesn't have to be the only identifier. They can also use email. Heck .. here is an algorithm ... use phone number 555XXXXXXX .. take a person's email address and hash it to XXXXXXX. Done!

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#77

Post by NiekvdMaas »

tim333 wrote: post #16
jeffjose wrote: post #2

No linux version. I was almost convinced that this was going to be another Electron app (after slack went that route)

I recommend Franz ( http://meetfranz.com/ ). Does Whatsapp, works on Linux, mac, pc. Supports Slack, WeChat, HipChat, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Google Hangouts, GroupMe and Skype.

This is just a wrapper for web clients of the "protocols" they support. So WhatsApp is web.whatsapp.com in a tab, Skype is web.skype.com, etc.

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#78

Post by [deleted] »

shliachtx wrote: post #65
tostitos1979 wrote: post #62

Why is Facebook/WhatsApp doing the tether to the phone crap? I have a few seniors in the family who have no need of a cellphone (stay at home most of the time). Everyone else in the family uses WhatsApp and these poor people are left out of the look. It is completely stupid as far as I can see. What is the phone requirement buying them?

Not an excuse, but: A) WhatsApp is a true messaging app. Once the messages are delivered, they are deleted from the server, so you need a primary device that stores the messages. B) It currently uses a phone number as identification, in order to create a true desktop app you would need another method (unless you use a landline or dumbphone phone number for desktop as well).

[deleted]

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#79

Post by cft »

shliachtx wrote: post #65
tostitos1979 wrote: post #62

Why is Facebook/WhatsApp doing the tether to the phone crap? I have a few seniors in the family who have no need of a cellphone (stay at home most of the time). Everyone else in the family uses WhatsApp and these poor people are left out of the look. It is completely stupid as far as I can see. What is the phone requirement buying them?

Not an excuse, but: A) WhatsApp is a true messaging app. Once the messages are delivered, they are deleted from the server, so you need a primary device that stores the messages. B) It currently uses a phone number as identification, in order to create a true desktop app you would need another method (unless you use a landline or dumbphone phone number for desktop as well).

Messages are not deleted from the server. They are probably stored there in the encryped form. When I open the web version of WhatsApp, same images and the message history that i have on my phone get downloaded there. I highly doubt that they rely on my phone as the only master storage of that data and upload all images into the web version from it?

Re: Introducing WhatsApp's Desktop App

#80

Post by ars »

cft wrote: post #79
shliachtx wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not an excuse, but: A) WhatsApp is a true messaging app. Once the messages are delivered, they are deleted from the server, so you need a primary device that stores the messages. B) It currently uses a phone number as identification, in order to create a true desktop app you would need another method (unless you use a landline or dumbphone phone number for desktop as well).

Messages are not deleted from the server. They are probably stored there in the encryped form. When I open the web version of WhatsApp, same images and the message history that i have on my phone get downloaded there. I highly doubt that they rely on my phone as the only master storage of that data and upload all images into the web version from it?

Actually yes, that is exactly what they do: Download everything from the phone.
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