Viber Moves From iOS to Mac with New Desktop App

Maybe it's time for WhatsApp to get a move on as well.

Sadly I have stopped using Viber awhile back, when most people switched to iMessage. And for international calling I find Skype to still have the best quality.

With so many instant messaging apps, it prefer to stick to mainstream:
Skype
iMessage /FaceTime

I can't afford to have a ton of apps running on my Mac to just to please everyone' s IM app choices. It takes away from my Mac's performance.

If something comes that's better than Skype I may switch if most of my contacts also switch.

ThE.MeSsEnGeR said:

Maybe it's time for WhatsApp to get a move on as well.

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Seriously, it's almost like WhatsApp WANTS some other company to take over

I'm tired of all the incompatibilities

We don't use 50 different email clients. Email is email.

I wish companies would just sit down and use the same standards and protocols for instant messaging, voice and video. Yes, I know, XMPP...

I remember Steve Jobs, during a Keynote, announcing that the Facetime protocols would become open-source. What happened to that promise?

im happy about this. i'v used skype for several years now, but in the past 2 years its service quality has dwindled down to rubbish -

frequent call drops and disconnects, crashing.

in the old days (early 2012 and prior) it would hold up a call for hours. nowadays i expect a call drop several times an hour.

iMessage here. Only need it on Windows now to complete the cycle.

I, for the 1 billionth time, still don't get the appeal of WhatsApp. Tried it before it was released and after. It requires everyone you know to have it. Everyone I know, doesn't have it. They all have iPhones as well. What's the point? I guess I can understand it's use for non iOS users?

Amazing Iceman said:

I can't afford to have a ton of apps running on my Mac to just to please everyone' s IM app choices.

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this is actually an issue as they do expect you to comply (especially on mobile platforms)

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Yvan256 said:

I remember Steve Jobs, during a Keynote, announcing that the Facetime protocols would become open-source. What happened to that promise?

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he doesn't work at apple anymore

aajeevlin said:

Sadly I have stopped using Viber awhile back, when most people switched to iMessage. And for international calling I find Skype to still have the best quality.

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My experience is the opposite. While iMessage would be my first choice, I've found it to be unreliable at maintaining a proper connection with some people, be they on a cellular network or a home wifi network. Not sure what causes the messages to not be delivered consistently. I don't experience this issue with any of the other messaging apps that I use - Skype, WhatsApp, Viber, Nimbuzz - only iMessage suffers this flakiness problem.

And as for video/voice quality, I find FaceTime far superior to Skype and it handles dropped calls much more gracefully. Skype reconnects automatically, but in audio-only mode, which is very annoying for such a handy feature. The only plus to Skype is that the volume is louder for me on iOS devices than FaceTime.

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AbSoluTc said:

iMessage here. Only need it on Windows now to complete the cycle.

I, for the 1 billionth time, still don't get the appeal of WhatsApp. Tried it before it was released and after. It requires everyone you know to have it. Everyone I know, doesn't have it. They all have iPhones as well. What's the point? I guess I can understand it's use for non iOS users?

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I struggled with accepting WhatsApp until I tried it. It is actually a very well-built application with great features. While I always try to use iMessage when available, I've found WhatsApp to be useful. However, my use case is very limited.

I also struggled with the name for a long time until I realized it was a play on the words "What's Up?"

needfx said:

this is actually an issue as they do expect you to comply (especially on mobile platforms)

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he doesn't work at apple anymore

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And it wasn't even going to be open WHEN he was in charge.

Why do people keep bringing that up? Apple lied, move on.

Yvan256 said:

I remember Steve Jobs, during a Keynote, announcing that the Facetime protocols would become open-source. What happened to that promise?

Click to expand...

I still hold a candle of hope that they'll follow-through on this promise. Make the protocol open, and then provide the best experience through the iMessage and Messages apps. The protocol shouldn't be held hostage.

Amazing Iceman said:

If something comes that's better than Skype I may switch if most of my contacts also switch.

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What I don't like with Skype it that you have to log in and that it seems to drain the battery more on iOS devices when logged in. With Viber one doesn't have to log in. The messages and calls come through anyway.

Amazing Iceman said:

With so many instant messaging apps, it prefer to stick to mainstream:
Skype
iMessage /FaceTime

Click to expand...

I'm trying to wean myself off of Skype simply because it's now owned by Microsoft.

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star-affinity said:

What I don't like with Skype it that you have to log in and that it seems to drain the battery more on iOS devices when logged in. With Viber one doesn't have to log in. The messages and calls come through anyway.

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With Viber, you're still connected to the Viber network. You have a validated connection.

Skype's log-in process is just overly-complicated and takes a long time. Typical Microsoft bloat.

AbSoluTc said:

iMessage here. Only need it on Windows now to complete the cycle.

I, for the 1 billionth time, still don't get the appeal of WhatsApp. Tried it before it was released and after. It requires everyone you know to have it. Everyone I know, doesn't have it. They all have iPhones as well. What's the point? I guess I can understand it's use for non iOS users?

Click to expand...

well i heard its not so big in the US but in the rest of the world. 116 of my 128 contacts have whatsapp.

it just seems more reliable than iMessage to me where sending pictures is taking forever or doesnt sent it all.

its also nice to see and check when a certain someone was online the last time

star-affinity said:

What I don't like with Skype it that you have to log in and that it seems to drain the battery more on iOS devices when logged in. With Viber one doesn't have to log in. The messages and calls come through anyway.

Click to expand...

Mmm.. I gotta check on that. How's videoconferencing compared to Skype and FaceTime?

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bushido said:

well i heard its not so big in the US but in the rest of the world. 116 of my 128 contacts have whatsapp.

it just seems more reliable than iMessage to me where sending pictures is taking forever or doesnt sent it all.

its also nice to see and check when a certain someone was online the last time

Click to expand...

I never had problems sending pics in iMessage. I don't send very often, but when I do, it's usually 5 pics at once.

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coolfactor said:

I'm trying to wean myself off of Skype simply because it's now owned by Microsoft.

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And tomorrow it may be owned by Intuit; then I'll stop using it for sure.

Actually I liked the fact that Skype and Live Messenger are now integrated; it freed me from one IM Client. I already dumped Oovoo and ICQ, so only two left for now it's not bad. Then there's Tango and others, but seem like data miners to me.

I love Viber. My family travels and lives several months a year overseas. Viber is our go to app. It works great cross platform. We love being able to get a local sim in "whatever" country we happen to be in and make calls back home for only the cost of the data. Keeps us in touch at all times.

AbSoluTc said:

iMessage here. Only need it on Windows now to complete the cycle.

I, for the 1 billionth time, still don't get the appeal of WhatsApp. Tried it before it was released and after. It requires everyone you know to have it. Everyone I know, doesn't have it. They all have iPhones as well. What's the point? I guess I can understand it's use for non iOS users?

Click to expand...

Most of the world runs on non-iOS phones, so it's quite popular for most people. Obviously if you don't know anyone who uses it, fair enough.

Whats with the massive use of white space? Don't developers understand that most people use IM apps whilst doing a lot of other things? Skype also went this route, its incredibly frustrating.

At the end of the day I guess it comes down to what your people use, in my case its Skype and as others are saying, Skype is on a perpetual journey to faildom.

Really disappointing that somebody does not develop a game changer in this field.

RolyPolyBird said:

Skype is on a perpetual journey to faildom.

Really disappointing that somebody does not develop a game changer in this field.

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It's unthinkable to me that in 2013, no ones put a decent VoIP service together. Blows my mind. Things were looking up with Skype, before they gracefully arc'd over and did a swan dive, into an empty pool.

Apple easily could have cleaned up iChat alongside FaceTime.
iChat, handled video, voice, screensharing, conferencing, and messaging.
It was great if not a tangle to set up.

Now a few scattered fragments of that are all that remains.

Everything goes to crap eventually.

Sweet! I guess whatsapp really dropped the ball here

ThunderSkunk said:

Apple easily could have cleaned up iChat alongside FaceTime.
iChat, handled video, voice, screensharing, conferencing, and messaging.
It was great if not a tangle to set up..

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Yup Apple could have brought out a rival to Skype that was multi platform- iTunes style. There are so many firms that could tackle this, including telecom carriers, but they don't want to harm existing business models. I guess we just have to wait (hope?) for better days.

Not working properly for me with texts - someone replies and it creates a new conversation with their number (not contact name), but if I reply to that one, it says "this contact doesn't have Viber yet..." but works fine if I switch back to the conversation with the contact name it sends, but all replies keep coming into the other one.

Also, when using the Mac client, the notifications don't clear on my iPhone, so I end up with loads.

Can't resize each window pane, and CMD+SHIFT + [ ] doesn't switch between conversation tabs like it does in iMessages and web browsers.

Lot of room for improvement. Progress though, would like to be able to combine Viber and WhatsApp into iMessages and have one IM for everything.

needfx said:

he doesn't work at apple anymore

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Fired again?!

Humm.... I have loaded and reloaded the Viber several times on my MacBook. I get the text code. I can even type in a phone number on my Mac and the text syncs with my iPhone. However, my contacts are not syncing with the Mac version.. Not sure what I'm doing wrong.