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Whatsapp messenger on iPad - doesn't work after update

T

Tinnitusdoc

macrumors member
Original poster
May 8, 2010
51
0
OMG he's german
Hi,

Anybody else having the same problem? I installed whatsapp messenger that I use on my iPhone a lot on the iPad, but after the update a couple of days ago, whenever I open the app it says, sorry the device is currently not supported.
Quiet annoying as I just bought an extra prepaid card for the app to run on the iPad.
 
People on the WhatsApp Facebook discussion are reporting the same problem. It appears they intentionally removed functionality for iPads. :mad:
 
I got an email from whatsapp's support:

"Hi Carl, we are sorry, but we have no plans to support iPad at this point"

In the app store it still says for iPhone, touch and iPad.
:confused:
 
Whatsapp on iPad

Yes I have the same issue!

There was quite a lot of discussions on the same topic on hardwarezone.
Somebody received the following message from Whatsapp admin:

"Thank you for contacting us.* While we appreciate your loyalty to our product, we feel that supporting iPad is a wrong direction for our company at the moment since we concentrate on mobile devices (iPhone, Blackberry and Android+Nokia coming very soon).

Basically, since iPad is not an always "with me" device, it will create a poor user experience compared to SMS.* Sorry."

http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/showthread.php?t=2764282

Whatsapp works on the iPod Touch; I don't understand the difference with the iPad...
 
The vendors should only remove WhatsApp Messenger form iPad apps' section in App Store to avoid such kind of misunderstanding
 
RipVega said:
It makes sense to me, I remain disappointed though.
Click to expand...

Makes no sense to me. The ipad IS a mobile device. Why 'disable' functionality on it while continuing to support ipod? If we cant transparently communicat between oir devices with whatsapp, we'll gladly jump to something else that does. Not too smart WhatsApp creators.
 
tpr007 said:
Why was this iPad functionality removed!?
Click to expand...

Their official reason was that the iPad is not a mobile device. They told me in private email that users couldn't understand that it needs its own phone number, so the iPad has a bad user experience. (Why leave iPod Touch enabled then?) I suspect the real reason is they have some motive for not wanting to be considered an "Instant messaging" app. They want to strictly be called a "Free text messaging" app.

Whatever it is, it's insulting to assume we are all too stupid to use it properly. They've been rather rude in some of their responses to comments on Twitter too. They INSIST the iPad is not mobile. Maybe they are gizmodo fans.
 
What's the best iPad messenger then? I've got IM+ lite but don't really want pay a fiver for the full thing.
 
PingChat2

I've been using PingChat2 for a while now and it works on iPad. It's not great and it's not updated for the iPad/iPhone4 screen, but it works.
 
The most logical thing would be to let both iPhone and iPad be logged onto the WhatsApp network at the same time. That would mean you would get messages to both your iPad and iPhone when someone texts you. That would be no problem whatsoever to me, since I could use the iPad to send messages. I really hate the iPhone keyboard after having tried the iPad's.
 
I would suggest using Textie instead. It's free and there's a Textie app for both the iPhone and the iPad.

I remember reading somewhere that the Whatsapp people removed iPad support because they only wanted to support devices that people always have on them, which they figured would lead to a better user experience. It's a bit silly since some of us take our iPads everywhere and not all iPhone users have data plans (well, maybe it depends on where you live). A friend who was a Whatsapp user actually ended up installing Textie on her iPhone so she could send messages to my iPad. :)
 
This decision of theirs, along with the announcement of iMessage now makes WhatsApp completely irrelevant.

Way to go, developers.
 
My 2 cents:

Obviously we can't Try To Use anything else, as much people still use whatsapp at least at this moment, and it is unpractical being asking everybody to swich to another tool, which is not obvious if it is worse than whatsapp itself. I Thought everyone knew that fact.

So, the penalty on swithching is bigger than trying to resolve the iPad issue, don't you think?

I indeed managed to install it on the iPad 1 running 5.0.1, but I must choose between having it running on the iphone or the ipad. I even tried to use UDIDFaker to fool the ipad into thinking it is the iphone, as I saw in some tutorial. I took care on not running them at the same time. Still I can't use in both, so I decide to use it on the iPhone.
 
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