Works internationally over wifi. Texting an international number requires both the sender and receiver to have roaming enabled which is unacceptable where cross-border travel is common. Eg Europe and I assume other markets too.
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WhatsApp Gains Email Address Verification for Authenticating Accounts
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Works internationally over wifi. Texting an international number requires both the sender and receiver to have roaming enabled which is unacceptable where cross-border travel is common. Eg Europe and I assume other markets too.
It’s to do with other features that traditionally standard messaging app doesn’t offer & it’s to do with market share.
American here. Benefits of a chat app like Telegram or WhatsApp (full disclosure, I haven’t used WhatsApp for several years, after migrating to Telegram and Signal. WhatsApp features have changed since I last used it).
1 - Platform agnostic. Doesn’t matter if my friends are on iOS, Android, Windows…
2 - Less/ no degradation of photo and video quality when sending cross platform.
3 - Significantly better management and small and large group chats. Especially when cross-platform.
4 - I can have Telegram/ WhatsApp installed on all my Apple and Windows and Android devices, and everything stays synced. Doesn’t matter which device I’m using, my messages are there.
5 - Not tied to one specific phone number. Easy to migrate to a new phone number whenever I need to, without losing my archived messages.
6 - not tied to cellular service. I frequently travel in areas with no cell service, only WiFi. Largely ameliorated with the improvements in SMS over WiFi.
7 - SIM agnostic. Can use the same chat username across SIMs, especially helpful when traveling internationally and changing SIMs and numbers all the time.
8 - No need to pay outrageous international charges on my primary line to message when traveling internationally. Just grab whatever local, cheap SIM or WiFi service is available.
9 - Better security. I’m not going to pretend that the end to end encryption is perfect, but it is good enough that I’m allowed to send protected information over it, but not over SMS.
10 - Some degree of anonymity. I can set up a chat app with a burner number, then transfer the account to my main phone, which gives a reasonable level of anonymity protection against casual harassment. I’m sure a dedicated person or entity wouldn’t find it too difficult to figure out my identity.
Many of the advanced chat features have been nicely integrated into iMessage and, to some degree, RCS, but all of that goes away when going cross platform.
In a phrase, it just works, and has so for years, while iMessage and RCS keep trying to catch up.
If all you do is send basic text messages, to a small group of personal friends, then there is no need to go outside the native SMS app. If you like to send photos, videos, silly GIFs, have large group chats, travel, and want some anonymity, then you really want to go with a full-featured app.
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I'm amused that the MacRumors forums are simultaneously filled with "I don't trust whatsapp/meta/facebook with my data," and "bring whatsapp to the iPad already!"
What should assuage both crowds is the Signal app, native and functional on iPad.
I had it about 2 years ago but I only convinced 1 person to switch and this was during the whole TnC change uproar for a whole 5 minutes in the EU
Just bring back the old version of WA for Mac. The UI changes in the latest update are absolutely horendous and useless.
Fortunately I can still use the older one for the time being...
Fortunately I can still use the older one for the time being...
I see now. I definitely fall into the category as you described in the last paragraph. The very few people in my life who don't have an iPhone are infrequent contacts/fine with basic sms anyhow. I'm not traveling internationally, and most places I do find myself without cell signal have wifi available. I have no need to change phone numbers, and if I do, iCould sync handles that for me nowadays.
That's a US thing, WhatsApp is global. And even in the US, it's a % of the population, not a % of the landmass.
1. It's cross platform(you can even use on on a PC, Linux not just mobile platform)
2. It's reliable
3. Everybody has access to it/can use it even on a very old smartphone(it works on a Galaxy S3 for example).
4. End2End encrypted
5. You can share media, large files
Whatsapp has the largest number of users in the world(Play Store shows 5 billion downloads), it dwarfs iMessage so much it's extremely amusing.
As much as people here hate Meta, Whatsapp is such a crucial app for them that if they would do anything to jeopardize its position it would be absolutely disastrous for the company.
It won't matter for most of the world what Apple does, as most of the world just ignores iMessage anyway.