Well said that man, it did appear strange on the surface, but you have cleared it up...
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- Thread starter FlyingTexan
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Yes, the fact that nobody in my circle of friends and family and co-workers has even heard of Whatsapp, much less used it.
Give over, trying to be all cute. You are on a tech forum saying you hadn't heard of the worlds number one used messaging app? Brilliant, 2 billion users, and it's somehow passes you by.... Let me guess. The words Facebook and Google are just meaningless names.. Stop trolling fella, the doors that way....
First, dial back the snark and you might find you’ll have more civil, reasonable conversations. Second, read more carefully—he didn’t say he hadn’t heard of it, but rather none of his co-workers or family. Stop assuming everyone out in the real world not reading tech forums have the same level of tech understanding as members here.
People outside the US don’t seem to get it...WhatsApp is just not used in this country. My wife is a physician—super smart woman in tons of areas but technology is certainly not one of them. She literally just asked me the other day if I knew what ‘what app was?’ because a small group she was joining was using it—a group of maybe half a dozen people. Ask most people in the US and you’ll likely often get similar unfamiliarity. It just doesn’t have the ubiquity here it does it other parts of the world. It would be no different if you asked random Americans if they knew about or used WeChat or Alibaba. Both are enormous entities, two of the largest respectively, with next to zero presence in the US. WhatsApp is much the same.
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Firstly, mind your business, I don't remember responding to you. Secondly do your research, this poster has previously mentioned never hearing about whattsapp or anyone in his life he has ever come accoss or ever will. I just don't believe it...
Wrong. I never said that I had not heard of Whatsapp. I have had an account for years. As a BSD user, I appreciate the fact they use FreeBSD in their stack.
But nobody in my circle of friends and family here in the US has ever heard of Whatsapp or even used it. I'm not going to ask 100 people to switch from iMessage to Whatsapp. Hence my initial point about iMessage being a major factor in favor of sticking with iOS.
Thanks for proving my point...both about civility and reading comprehension. Easy add to the ignore list.
The owner of the company I work for uses WhatsApp exclusively. He's a Greek national, and all of his family is in Greece and they use WA. They all have iPhones and he has a Sony Xperia, so he has no desire to change. But it's pretty standard fare outside of the U.S. When he asked why it didn't work on our Wifi/Network, I found out that all kinds of weird ports needed to be opened. I cringed...and still do. Having to create DHCP reservations and open specific ports for an app made in China makes me nervous. But hey, it's his company...as long as I get a check every 2 weeks...?
The owner of the company I work for uses WhatsApp exclusively. He's a Greek national, and all of his family is in Greece and they use WA. They all have iPhones and he has a Sony Xperia, so he has no desire to change. But it's pretty standard fare outside of the U.S. When he asked why it didn't work on our Wifi/Network, I found out that all kinds of weird ports needed to be opened. I cringed...and still do. Having to create DHCP reservations and open specific ports for an app made in China makes me nervous. But hey, it's his company...as long as I get a check every 2 weeks...
App made in China? WhatsApp was based in the U.S. even before its Facebook acquisition.
I assume you are in the US. There is quite an advanced world outside your borders. The owner of your company is probably an intelligent fellow (note that he is the owner and you his employee). And as pointed out by @Roadstar, WhatsApp is not Chinese. As you are undoubtedly aware, Facebook is American, as is Apple, so perhaps your fears should be facing towards home a bit more.
Weird ports needed to be opened? It's just an app on the play store that opens when you tap it? What ports are we describing?
If you want to use the voice features, they rely on a range of ports to be open. In a corporate network, those are typically blocked; both TCP and UDP. Most home wifi and LTE/etc. are open, so they're never blocked. Yet Facetime, etc. all seem to function fine of HTTPS.
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I'm not a Facebook guy, and couldn't care less about it or most Social Media platforms. WhatsApp had been notorious for exploits, most of which originated in China, so, bad on me for assuming. But when you open those things up to an enterprise, it's not too smart. So, yes he's a smart business man but that doesn't mean he's necessarily knowledgeable or smart about security. Any time you start opening ports, and/or a range of ports, you're also opening up the potential for exploits, etc. Like I said, that's up to him, his company. But if you ask most security folks who protect company assets, and IP they'll say it's a huge mistake.
Also, I'm not opposed to WhatsApp for chat, etc. in a personal setting. Every app out there has the chance for exploits, including Facetime, and others. I just prefer not to make exceptions on a corporate network, knowing they could/can cause vulnerabilities.
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Having used either Windows or macOS/iOS/iPadOS since 1992, I really considered myself “tech savvy” having been living in a walled garden that I didn’t know existed until I bought a Galaxy Tab A 8 in late-March.
Once I picked this little gadget up and experienced Android for the very first time did I realize what I didn’t know—(1) how f’d up chatting on an Android tablet was compared to iMessage, and (2) how many alternative chat apps there were out there. I heard of WhatsApp but never used it.
Once I imported my personal contact I found only TWO (out of about a hundred-plus) were even using it. I’m in the US so, yeah, this is not shocking to me but it must be to you.
Once I imported my LinkedIn contacts (which include my international colleagues), I was surprised to find how many were using WhatsApp—nearly 60%.
Point being, no need to hammer away at the OP—he’s not alone.
(FYI—in the end, I‘m using Google Messages on my tablet through Opera via a homescreen link to mimic what I used to do with iChat.)
Update
I went to Android for the first time 21 months ago via a Samsung Galaxy S10e. Contrary to many comments I read from iPhone users, it has been a great experience. It was easy to adapt to living outside Tim's garden. Android does what I need it to do and I receive monthly security patches from Samsung in a timely manner. Living in Europe iMessage was never a thing for me even in my iPhone years so not having access to it now is a non issue.
So for those who may be on the fence and hesitant to leave the iPhone world, I say "Give it a try".
I went to Android for the first time 21 months ago via a Samsung Galaxy S10e. Contrary to many comments I read from iPhone users, it has been a great experience. It was easy to adapt to living outside Tim's garden. Android does what I need it to do and I receive monthly security patches from Samsung in a timely manner. Living in Europe iMessage was never a thing for me even in my iPhone years so not having access to it now is a non issue.
So for those who may be on the fence and hesitant to leave the iPhone world, I say "Give it a try".