Smartphones

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Jysin

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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I think the big disconnect with whatsapp in the US is the fact cell providers have given unlimited texts for many many years now. Because of this, it just never really caught on. However, the beauty of whatsapp lies in the group chat functions & ability to assign multiple admins. As an expat, every single person I know has used whatsapp since it was released, way before the acquisition by Facebook. The ability to message with friends & family (family group chats) across the world to any country for zero cost was pretty groundbreaking at the time. I actually now use whatsapp voice / video chat more than Skype these days.

If you live in the US and have all American friends and family, I can see how it is limited in use.
 

Destiny's Paw

Golden Squire
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Owen JJ Stone was on TWiT this week and I think he explained the real reason people pay more for iPhones.

(Don't let the running time scare you, it's cued up to the right point and you only need to listen to like 1 minute.)



It's all about successful marketing making people feel superior for having this thing (and a bit of ecosystem lock in to keep you there after you're in). People don't like to admit it but that is real and then they rationalize it with shit like worrying about malware.

Let them use a Android device and get them to start messing with the Launcher settings. "Where do I sign up"
 

Ossoi

Potato del Grande
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I think the big disconnect with whatsapp in the US is the fact cell providers have given unlimited texts for many many years now. .


errr we have unlimited texts in UK too and have done for years. There's no comparison between whatsapp and text, arguably whatsapp killed text messages here
 

Cad

scientia potentia est
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errr we have unlimited texts in UK too and have done for years. There's no comparison between whatsapp and text, arguably whatsapp killed text messages here

Maybe the iphone penetration rate among normal white people means imessage killed it here... I'd imagine if the iphone rate was only 50% instead of 90% (among our friends/people we talk to) we'd be adopting some solution like that as well.
 

Crone

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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I suspect Cad Cad is right. For example with my family, they all have iPhone's and have big group chats setup between different family members. It all works perfect for them and there is absolutely no reason for them to switch to WhatsApp. I'm not invited to these groups because I'd fuck shit up bringing an android into the mix. That's a good thing lol.
 

BrutulTM

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Yeah, iMessage is a dumb reason to use an iPhone when you can use whatsapp or facebook messenger or hangouts and do everything that imessage does AND talk to android users but I know once people get started with something they don't want to change.

I actually love FB messenger. My friends/family have all sorts of chats and groups set up on it and it works great. Also, since everybody has FB you can use it to contact people you barely know without getting their cell number or email or whatever else. The only exceptions are the one branch of my family that uses iPhones and they're always trying to talk to us with fucking MMS like it's 2004.
 

Cad

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Yeah, iMessage is a dumb reason to use an iPhone when you can use whatsapp or facebook messenger or hangouts and do everything that imessage does AND talk to android users but I know once people get started with something they don't want to change.

I actually love FB messenger. My friends/family have all sorts of chats and groups set up on it and it works great. Also, since everybody has FB you can use it to contact people you barely know without getting their cell number or email or whatever else. The only exceptions are the one branch of my family that uses iPhones and they're always trying to talk to us with fucking MMS like it's 2004.

It's not really that I'd mind using WhatsApp, its the 300 other people I'd have to convince. There's a shit ton of inertia.
 
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Noodleface

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It's not really that I'd mind using WhatsApp, its the 300 other people I'd have to convince. There's a shit ton of inertia.
Yeah. Stuck with MMS with family member groups because of this. Me and my friends all use messenger/whatsapp
 

Crone

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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It's not really that I'd mind using WhatsApp, its the 300 other people I'd have to convince. There's a shit ton of inertia.
Exactly.

But I guess that's the point being made? Over in the UK everyone has WhatsApp already?
 

meStevo

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Hangouts was becoming what all my friends used, but Google went and fucked that up.

Now we're all over the place, Messenger, Hangouts, SMS, and Discord.
 

Cad

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Facebook Messenger is my go-to.

Everyone's on Facebook.

Not that I send anything salacious but it just seems like sending everything through facebook is like INHERENTLY NOT PRIVATE. For some reason it just gives me the willies.
 

Cad

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Exactly.

But I guess that's the point being made? Over in the UK everyone has WhatsApp already?

A lot of those things are critical mass driven.. if 50% of the people had whatsapp already, the other 50% would jump in. When it's 20%/20%/20%.. everyone uses the built in because who wants to have 5 different messaging apps?
 

Crone

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A lot of those things are critical mass driven.. if 50% of the people had whatsapp already, the other 50% would jump in. When it's 20%/20%/20%.. everyone uses the built in because who wants to have 5 different messaging apps?
Right. iMessage would be nice on Android. Or even just PC.
 

BrutulTM

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It would be nice but it will never happen because apple very consciously maintains the idea of exclusivity with their ecosystem which is one of the big reasons I don't use their stuff.
 
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Noodleface

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iMessage is awful. When I switched to Android I lost like a week of text messages to the twisted nether because even though I released my number it was for some reason stuck. Even if I went back to apple one day id use something else
 

Cad

scientia potentia est
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iMessage is awful. When I switched to Android I lost like a week of text messages to the twisted nether because even though I released my number it was for some reason stuck. Even if I went back to apple one day id use something else

Yea that has been an issue for a while, because your number is still flagged in Apple's servers as being on iMessage so it attempts to deliver the messages that way. I think it's mostly fixed now because iMessage falls back to SMS if iMessage fails to deliver. But I had a friend that dropped off of Apple and went to android and we had the same issue. For a while I had to literally turn off iMessage in order to text him.