Immensely popular cross-platform messaging service WhatsApp is gearing up to take on Skype with voice-over-IP (VoIP) calling — and these are the screenshots that prove it. The feature will have a similar interface as the built-in Phone app, and it boasts features like speaker phone and muting.
WhatsApp, the popular messaging service that was recently bought by Facebook, is adding a big feature in a few months: voice calling.
During a keynote at Mobile World Congress, WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum announced that voice calling would be added in the second quarter of this year. The feature will be a free addition to the already free app.
WhatsApp has 465 million monthly active users, which is 15 million more than Facebook. The service’s huge international presence (it’s the largest mobile messaging service in Korea, for example) also helps explain why Facebook paid $19 billion to own it.
Source: TechCrunch
Keeping themselves in the news, Mark Zuckerberg and the people of Facebook have just recently acquired the hit messaging app WhatsApp for 19 billion dollars. With over 450 million people already using the app each month, they hope to build upon this success. Similar to their purchasing of Instagram in 2012, will you start using WhatsApp for all of your conversations?
Take a look at WhatsApp app and see what you think.
This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the multi-platform application “WhatsApp” brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”
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The story of WhatsApp — the messaging app just purchased by Facebook for an insane $19 billion — is pretty fascinating.
Seems that the app’s founders did everything right by doing everything wrong. They flouted Silicon Valley rules like getting press and adding features, and instead focused on making the app do one thing well: send messages. It all sounds very Apple-like, and it’s been well covered in fascinating features from Forbes and Wired that are currently doing the rounds.
One detail in the Forbes piece flew out at me in particular — detailing how Apple accidentally created the core element of WhatsApp by adding a new iOS feature.
If you can’t beat ’em, buy em.
That’s been Facebook’s strategy lately when it comes to third-party challengers and this afternoon the company announced its making its biggest acquisition yet, scooping up popular messaging app WhatsApp for a cool $12 billion in stock.
Facebook is also tossing in $4 billion in cash as well as $3 billion in restricted stock units bringing the total price tag to an incredible $19 billion.
BBM has been a huge success on Android and iOS, and so although they may be rival platforms, that won’t stop BlackBerry from porting over its biggest and best BBM features to keep its messaging service alive.
In 2014, the Canadian company will rollout major updates that add BBM Channels, BBM Voice, and new sharing features — and you can see them in action in the video below.
At an event in New York City today, Instagram announced Instagram Direct, a new feature that allows users to share private photos and videos with their friends and loved ones. It will be baked into the existing Instagram app for Android and iOS with an update that’s rolling out today.
Viber, the hugely popular cross-platform messaging service, now offers low-cost calls to mobile phones and landlines worldwide as part of a new service called Viber Out. It’s available on Android, iOS, and though the Viber desktop client, and it boasts call fees substantially cheaper than Skype’s.
Popular cross-plaform service WhatsApp has been redesigned for iOS 7. The redesign leaked last month, and it’s finally here.
The app’s entire interface has been simplified, and group messaging has been improved with a new feature called Broadcasts Lists. You can create groups of people such as “classmates” to message all at once.
Here’s the full list of changes:
Given that it’s one of the biggest and most successful third-party messaging platforms available on mobile, you might be wondering why WhatsApp still hasn’t been updated for iOS 7 — more than two months after the software’s public release, and over five months after it was first made available to developers. (I certainly am.)
But the update — complete with a fancy redesign — is on its way, and you can get an early glimpse at it in the hands-on video below.
Who cares?
That’s the question I was asked time and time again when I told people that BBM was coming to Android and iOS. But it seems a lot of people care. In fact, when BBM finally made its cross-platform debut yesterday, the app was downloaded over 5 million times in just eight hours.
Twitter hopes to compete with instant messaging services like WhatsApp and Line with a new app that’s dedicated to direct messaging, AllThingsD reports. The company hopes the move will bring “the long-buried feature to the forefront” and place a new emphasis on its private messaging capabilities.
Given that it’s the most popular cross-platform messaging service on the planet, you might have thought that WhatsApp would have a new redesign ready to go when iOS 7 was made available to the public earlier this month, but as things stand, it’s still rocking its old look.
Presumably the team behind it are hard at work on the update as we speak, however, and hopefully we won’t have to wait too long for it. But in the meantime, check out these awesome WhatsApp for iOS 7 concept designs that give us a taster of what might be in store for our favorite messaging app.
Samsung has today announced that its cross-platform ChatON messaging service now boasts over 100 million users across Android, BlackBerry, iOS, and Windows Phone. It’s taken just two years for the service to become more popular than BBM, once one of the biggest names in instant messaging, and it continues to grow at an impressive rate.
BlackBerry failed miserably in its attempt to bring BBM to Android and iOS last week, but the Canadian company hasn’t given up on making its popular messaging service available to all. In fact, it isn’t just targeting other mobile platforms, but it’s also planning to bring BBM to your desktop, too.
https://youtu.be/i3I_7H1mByA
WhatsApp, one of the most popular univeral messaging apps out there, now has a neat new ability for iPhone users: you can exchange voice messages via push-to-talk, and your message can be received and responded to by any WhatsApp user, whether on Android, Blackberry, Nokia or Windows Phone.
I have a confession to make: I own a BlackBerry Z10, and I love it. I think its BlackBerry 10 operating system is terrific — it’ll be even better when it gets more apps — and I haven’t been this excited about a new platform since I got my first iPhone. Seriously.
I certainly don’t want to see BlackBerry sinking anytime soon, then.
But I can’t help but wonder whether BlackBerry might have just shot itself in the foot by announcing BlackBerry Messenger for Android and iOS.
At its BlackBerry Live event in Orlando, Florida, BlackBerry just announced that its popular BlackBerry Messenger service is going cross-platform. This summer, BBM will finally be available on Android and iOS — and it will be completely free.
WhatsApp has denied that it is holding sales talks with Google following reports that the company is on the verge of a $1 billion buyout. One source claimed last week that the hugely popular cross-platform messaging service has been in talks with Google for the last 4-5 weeks, but WhatsApp’s business development lead, Neeraj Arora, denies any discussions.
There are a couple of cross-platform messaging apps that will help you bridge the divide between your friends on iOS and Android, but over the last year, WhatsApp has become the most popular option, and it’s caught the attention of Google.
A new report claims that Google is in talks to buy WhatsApp for $1 billion, but the talks have been going on for four or five weeks and haven’t been finalized yet.
LockLauncher, a handy tweak that allows you to run apps from the lock screen on jailbroken iPhones, has today been updated to add support for the iPhone 5 and iOS 6. You can download it now from Cydia’s BigBoss repository.
WhatsApp, the hugely popular cross-platform messaging service, is bringing its paid subscription model to iOS. The company hasn’t yet confirmed when the move take place, but it will “definitely” happen during 2013. When that time comes, you’ll need to pay $0.99 a year to use the service.
QuickPhoto is a new tweak for jailbroken iPhones that brings the camera roll to your keyboard for super speedy image uploading. Once installed, you have one-touch access to all the photos you’ve taken on your device — just hit the same globe key you would use to access an international keyboard.
Following its acquisition of Instagram earlier this year, Facebook is said to be eyeing up another popular service. Cross-platform messenger WhatsApp could be the next item on the social network’s shopping list as the company looks to extend its mobile presence, according to sources close to the matter.