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I honestly don't know why WhatsApp is so popular!! I know it is cross platform but so is Viber and other apps. Is there anything WhatsApp does does better then Viber? I would quit using WhatsApp anytime if it wasn't for more of my contacts using it compare to Viber.

First-mover advantage and network effects. The novelty of sending text messages over the Internet based on phone number, combined with a wide availability on various systems. Once the snowball starts rolling more and more users will get it, because their friends have it too. With more users, Whatsapp becomes even more important. At that point it becomes the de facto standard, regardless of whether there are better alternatives out there. If the app works and does what it should do, then competitors will have a hard time competing with Whatsapp.
 
The company has between 40 and 45 employees and an user base of over 300 million (they have more users than Twitter). In their most popular countries everyone with a smartphone uses Whatsapp instead of SMS or a another chat services. In those countries you are left with no choice. All my contacts in my phonebook have Whatsapp and I couldn't convince enough people to switch. We even have an official verb here: Whatsappen.

So you can imagine how important the app is for a lot of people and how it sucks that the company in charge is so lazy and lives in the past.
 
Whatsapp has always been one of the slowest developer to issue updates. Ironically, they are the last one that charges money. Oh yes they were quick to update to the new annual payment model.

Just browse to the App Store and view their Version History. There wasn't a single update from 7 Dec 2012 until 16 Jul 2013. Impressive.
 
Whatsapp on Android is miles ahead of the iOS version & get updated quite often to.

Reason for this is because Android has a bigger user base than iOS does, so all of Whatsapp's efforts go into the Android version first & foremost.

As i've mentioned in one of my past post's, Google is about to launch Kitkat 4.4, and Whatsapp will have a update for this not long after launch probably within a week, whereas the iOS7 user's will still be waiting.
 
Whatsapp on Android is miles ahead of the iOS version & get updated quite often to.

Reason for this is because Android has a bigger user base than iOS does, so all of Whatsapp's efforts go into the Android version first & foremost.

As i've mentioned in one of my past post's, Google is about to launch Kitkat 4.4, and Whatsapp will have a update for this not long after launch probably within a week, whereas the iOS7 user's will still be waiting.

Nope. Other messengers like Line and WeChat gets update frequently on iOS despite that they have a larger user base for Android. And user base is nothing unless they pay or they generate income.
 
Nope. Other messengers like Line and WeChat gets update frequently on iOS despite that they have a larger user base for Android. And user base is nothing unless they pay or they generate income.

Whatsapp developers prefer Android more than iOS, that is well known, Line has way more employees too, Whatsapp only has 20 employees.
 
Viber is bloated as **** with all those horrendous emoticons, and the new Whatsapp audio message function rocks, when it works that is... I use both apps only Viber for VoIP because voice sounds great, not as amazing as facetime audio but it sounds great. do not use viber for messaging though.

Sucks Whatsapp cares more for android where they probably even know how pirated their app is on there
 
I honestly don't know why WhatsApp is so popular!! I know it is cross platform but so is Viber and other apps. Is there anything WhatsApp does does better then Viber? I would quit using WhatsApp anytime if it wasn't for more of my contacts using it compare to Viber.
First-mover advantage, and that's about it.

Seriously, lazy as f bunch of developers. Using the app on iOS 7 is such an eyesore now.
 
one of the most popular apps, also one of the slowest to update their apps.
 
I really hope that with BBM now available for iOS, they somehow feel pressured and release the update soon.
 
It works fine. I don't mind they haven't pushed a huge incremental update yet. I don't fancy the new iOS7 colors very much. It's rather hard to read on and seems childish. The keyboard when typing to siri, however, is nice.
 
I really hope that with BBM now available for iOS, they somehow feel pressured and release the update soon.

BBM for iOS is a joke... You can't even share videos, can't share contacts, nothing... And you are back to adding people with pins... Which I now find very annoying... I was so excited when it launched on iOS that a few friends and me downloaded as soon as it went live on the app store... I really hoped RIM wouyld have FINALLY learnt its lesson and would have made something truly fantastic... It's just a POS... :( :'( Die RIM... Just roll over and die now...
 
*off topic*
blackberry should just die off already... get out of the game while they still can.
 
damn you whatsapp!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
They don't design. They just use the standard SDK and the default theme and.... they're done! Just like on Windows Phone and Android.

If you would put the iOS, Android and WP app next to each other you wouldn't known that it was the same app by the same developer. There is no design vision, recognition or any design whatsoever.

I've decided to stop complaining too much however, as I got Whatsapp for free many years ago and I can't demand anything as not being a paying customer :)
 
BBM for iOS is a joke... You can't even share videos, can't share contacts, nothing... And you are back to adding people with pins... Which I now find very annoying... I was so excited when it launched on iOS that a few friends and me downloaded as soon as it went live on the app store... I really hoped RIM wouyld have FINALLY learnt its lesson and would have made something truly fantastic... It's just a POS... :( :'( Die RIM... Just roll over and die now...

Yeah, BBM for iOS is very basic at the moment. The UI isn't smooth on iPhone 5S too. You can notice the delay when switching chats or going back to the contacts.

Although I like the PIN system, that's the only reason I using it.
 
thats normal for whatsapp... they always take so long and come out with ****** designs

It's sad that the concepts on dribble are better than the actual whatsapp design.

The leaked images lack colour. The default iOS 7 interface has colors that are unique to each app, which gives some life and makes it easier to distinguish buttons from labels.

This just doesn't do that. They can give it nice dark green accents.
 
For sure they are going to be looking at ways to get more people to pay up. I've not paid a penny for the app, since I was an early adopter.

I'll bet they will chargefor version 2!
 
I honestly don't know why WhatsApp is so popular!! I know it is cross platform but so is Viber and other apps. Is there anything WhatsApp does does better then Viber? I would quit using WhatsApp anytime if it wasn't for more of my contacts using it compare to Viber.

I used Viber until they brought out the Mac version and it just didn't work in the UK at all (ended up with +44..... conversations as well as 07...... conversations, the same phone number/person, just a different way of writing it, but ended up causing duplicate conversations).

WhatsApp works well for me though - can share audio and video reliably, and it's the most popular in the UK. A desktop version would be nice too though.
 
I honestly don't know why WhatsApp is so popular!! I know it is cross platform but so is Viber and other apps. Is there anything WhatsApp does does better then Viber? I would quit using WhatsApp anytime if it wasn't for more of my contacts using it compare to Viber.

Just downloaded Viber.

It's completely free and in the settings there's a switch to stop it collecting your data, a reason why I like WhatsApp so much is because they don't want to sell your data or give you adverts, I think paid for services are better than 'free' services that have ads, there's a saying that "If you're not paying, then you're the product", and think about it, if a service is selling my data to advertisers, than really, I am the product and the advertisers are the customers.

http://blog.whatsapp.com/index.php/2012/06/why-we-dont-sell-ads/

There's also Hemlis which looks pretty good but god knows when that'll be finished (Plus the chat list looks ugly) - https://heml.is/
 
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