[CrackBerry Question]

will i be able to use whatsapp in bbq10 from 2017 as i heard that it would be deactivated in BBQ10 in the end of 2016

[thurask]

Signs point to no.

[raino]

It's Whatsapp that won't be supporting...Whatsapp on BB10 in 2017. Whatsapp's who decided to kill the BB10 app.

[imz]

No, Whatsapp have halted development which is fair enough as Blackberry is only carrying out maintenance on bb10, and with no new bb10 devices in the pipeline, market share will continue to decline.

When the parent company throws in the towel it only makes sense for developers to cease development and support.

Posted via CB10

[raino]

When the parent company throws in the towel it only makes sense for developers to cease development and support.

By that logic, BlackBerry "threw in the towel" on BBOS a while ago. Why is Whatsapp still working on OS 7 devices today?

Google "threw in the towel" on Android 3.x years ago. Why will Whatsapp still be supported on this OS? Is the market share for Android 3.x on the rise?

[rthonpm]

The real issue with WhatsApp is their parent company, Facebook, which also pulled support for their app from BlackBerry as well. My thinking is part of the issue is the fact that the Hub integration doesn't let Facebook get as much information from users as it would from opening the app itself.

Part of Facebook's strategy is getting as many people into their platform as possible and that means getting them on the website, or into the mobile app, in order to get as many eyeballs as possible looking at their ads and giving them data back from the app.

Posted via CB10

[conite]

The real issue with WhatsApp is their parent company, Facebook, which also pulled support for their app from BlackBerry as well. My thinking is part of the issue is the fact that the Hub integration doesn't let Facebook get as much information from users as it would from opening the app itself.

Part of Facebook's strategy is getting as many people into their platform as possible and that means getting them on the website, or into the mobile app, in order to get as many eyeballs as possible looking at their ads and giving them data back from the app.

Posted via CB10

Facebook did not pull support for BlackBerry. They stopped supporting their public APIs because there was no real need for them anymore. The Android and iOS apps services over 99% of the world now.

[Troy Tiscareno]

WhatsApp is planning on adding new features to their service, and older/out-of-development OSs either don't support the functions required for these new features or just have too small of marketshare to make sense to spend the money to develop these new features for those platforms.

As such, WhatsApp has decided to no longer support a whole list of older platforms, including older versions of Android. And while BB10 is a newer platform, it hasn't been actively developed for nearly 20 months already ("support" is not "development") and has tiny marketshare, making it not worth the investment. BBOS is on the list as well, but mostly because it won't support the newer APIs needed (and it's old and fading fast).

This can't be a surprise to anyone... tiny (and shrinking) marketshare means a lack of support by developers. Many other BB10 apps are being discontinued and/or not being fixed when server-side changes break them. Even BB themselves aren't updating their own BB10 apps, so you can't expect others to do so - nor can you expect the rest of the world to stop and march in place (instead of moving forward with new functions and features) just because BB10 isn't keeping up.

Ask former WebOS users how this works...

[goldrush]

Will we at least be able to run the Android version of WhatsApp on our BB10 devices?

Posted via CB10

[conite]

Will we at least be able to run the Android version of WhatsApp on our BB10 devices?

Posted via CB10

Unknown. They may make changes that make it incompatible. It already doesn't allow for sending media.

[DenverRalphy]

Google "threw in the towel" on Android 3.x years ago. Why will Whatsapp still be supported on this OS? Is the market share for Android 3.x on the rise?

Android 2.x will be losing support at the same time as BB10. Android 3.x was Honeycomb which was a Tablet Only version, of which was never officially supported by Whatsapp (3.x was essentially a backwards compatibility build with a tablet focus). So in effect, once Android 2.x support is gone at the same time as BB10, Whatsapp will only be supporting 4.x (ICS) and up.

[raino]

Android 3.x was Honeycomb which was a Tablet Only version, of which was never officially supported by Whatsapp (3.x was essentially a backwards compatibility build with a tablet focus). So in effect, once Android 2.x support is gone at the same time as BB10, Whatsapp will only be supporting 4.x (ICS) and up.

Noted.

Android 4.0.3-4.0.4, according to the Developers' Dashboard, sits at a user base of 1.9%. Even assuming that's all phones, why is Whatsapp supporting such a minuscule percentage of Android users?

[togarika]

Facebook did not pull support for BlackBerry. They stopped supporting their public APIs because there was no real need for them anymore. The Android and iOS apps services over 99% of the world now.

Facebook never supported BB10. They refused from day one to develop any apps for BB10.

Long Live BB10!

[conite]

Facebook never supported BB10. They refused from day one to develop any apps for BB10.

Long Live BB10!

What does this have to do with my post?

Besides, Facebook indirectly supported BlackBerry by supporting public APIs.

[DenverRalphy]

Noted.

Android 4.0.3-4.0.4, according to the Developers' Dashboard, sits at a user base of 1.9%. Even assuming that's all phones, why is Whatsapp supporting such a minuscule percentage of Android users?

Because the development requirements needed are provided as far back as 4.0 without having to code specifically to accomodate them. They don't have to go out of their way to provide separate builds to accommodate that far back. If that lower percentage (of approximately 30 million users based on 2015 statistics) required a separate build, the developers at Whatsapp may very well have decided to cut that too. However, the Android 4.0 version provides them with everything they need to accommodate every android user up to the current OS version. So that limited number of 4.0 users is a non issue, simply because Whatsapp can develop down to that level and cover everybody up to the most recent version.

Android 2.x (and 3.x as a result) doesn't have that luxury. Nor does BB10.

The number of users is only a "consideration". But if you can include them in without additional development resources, then there's no reason to cut them out. Software development always works that way. Develop to the lowest common denominator.

[togarika]

The real issue with WhatsApp is their parent company, Facebook, which also pulled support for their app from BlackBerry as well. My thinking is part of the issue is the fact that the Hub integration doesn't let Facebook get as much information from users as it would from opening the app itself.

Part of Facebook's strategy is getting as many people into their platform as possible and that means getting them on the website, or into the mobile app, in order to get as many eyeballs as possible looking at their ads and giving them data back from the app.

Posted via CB10

It's just Facebook being short sighted. Hub notification actually makes you visit The app more often.

Long Live BB10!

[DenverRalphy]

Facebook never supported BB10. They refused from day one to develop any apps for BB10.

Long Live BB10!

That's not accurate. BBRY always developed the FB apps in house since the inception of Facebook. Even when BB was king of the smartphone market, FB apps were built in house by BBRY (by choice). FB never refused. FB was just happy to pass off development to somebody else so as not to have to expend their own resources. However, when FB made some much needed changes to accommodate their own personal interests, BBRY couldn't comply. And by the time that it would be better for BB to have FB do the development, the cost vs reward of FB making their own BBOS/BB10 app just wasn't cost effective.

[Troy Tiscareno]

That's not accurate. BBRY always developed the FB apps in house since the inception of Facebook. Even when BB was king of the smartphone market, FB apps were built in house by BBRY (by choice). FB never refused. FB was just happy to pass off development to somebody else so as not to have to expend their own resources. However, when FB made some much needed changes to accommodate their own personal interests, BBRY couldn't comply. And by the time that it would be better for BB to have FB do the development, the cost vs reward of FB making their own BBOS/BB10 app just wasn't cost effective.

In the 2007-2010 time frame, lots of social media companies published public APIs so that others could build clients for their apps, which helped their service grow without the company having to fund clients for lots of different platforms. But over the last 2-3 years, as iOS and Android have solidified control of the market, and the competing platforms have fallen to tiny percentages of marketshare, AND as security issues have become a much bigger deal, many of these companies have discontinued their public APIs and have greatly enhanced the security of their native first-party clients. This is great for iOS and Android users (99+% of the market), but unfortunately it means that niche platforms can no longer be supported, because third-party clients don't work anymore, and because the companies can't financially justify building first-party clients for relatively tiny platforms.

This trend is only going to continue...

[Prem WatsApp]

In the 2007-2010 time frame, lots of social media companies published public APIs so that others could build clients for their apps, which helped their service grow without the company having to fund clients for lots of different platforms. But over the last 2-3 years, as iOS and Android have solidified control of the market, and the competing platforms have fallen to tiny percentages of marketshare, AND as security issues have become a much bigger deal, many of these companies have discontinued their public APIs and have greatly enhanced the security of their native first-party clients. This is great for iOS and Android users (99+% of the market), but unfortunately it means that niche platforms can no longer be supported, because third-party clients don't work anymore, and because the companies can't financially justify building first-party clients for relatively tiny platforms.

This trend is only going to continue...

It's a good trend on one hand and a little worrying on the other... :-D

�   There's a Crack in the Berry right now...   �

[biznessninja]

It's a big fat... nope. Sad to see the great blackberry OS slowly die like this. Painful!

Posted via CB10

[Jenserm]

I just uninstalled the OS10 version of whatsapp and installed the android version. Of course it's not possible to upload media. But I just need whatsapp for organizing my sparetime over whatsapp-groups. If I want to share a picture over the android version of whatsapp, I just upload the picture to "google photos" and share the link over whatsapp. Thats the way I'll do it with any other media.

I don't think the android version of whatsapp will change in a way, that it does not support android 4.3 in the next 2-3 years. So I'm quite sure I'm able to use my Q10 as long as I want to with android whatsapp some more years.

[brummiee]

It is not only BB10 that is effected, many other mobiles won't be able to use whatsapp 2017 either. A few of my friends and I are already using bbm, the rest of my family and friends are changing to bbm too. I am not going to let them push me in to use a phone that I don't want to, I am very happy with my BB. It would be good if all bb users would do the same. BBM came be downloaded used by all phones

[fabio1]

I am not going to pushed around by an app, moving friends back to BBM. Latest telephone sharing will put whatsapp users off the app. Spread the word and start using BBM!