5 ms·

I will not complain if WhatsApp makes an attempt at killing all the shitty chat apps such as Skype that are riding on their initial success but suck as a produc

by zaidf 13y ago

I will not complain if WhatsApp makes an attempt at killing all the shitty chat apps such as Skype that are riding on their initial success but suck as a product. It boggles my mind why skype randomly pops notifications on my iPhone for messages sent to me months ago.

mistermann 13y ago
Oh god do I agree, I could write pages on the different ways in which Skype sucks. Just one example....when the connection is bad, it degrades audio and video, so neither is usable. And we won't even start on the nightmare that's the UI. That MS paid a king's ransom for this and has done nothing with it since boggles the mind.
- err4nt 13y ago
  When Microsoft purchased Skype they weren't buying software, they were buying users back who use to use MSN Messenger before jumping ship. AIM (AOL's chat client) was only popular in the US, the rest of the world used MSN for years and it finally died in favour of Skype and gTalk. This was their best way of killing MSN messenger, and rolling their remaining users into a useful userbase. That's why the only addition to Skype has been logging in with your Microsoft ID. Microsoft also has a product called 'Lync' that (from what I've heard) is not doing so well, so I believe their goal there again is to roll their users into Skype and eventually discontinue that product. Buying Skype was all about trying to salvage their brand from the shortcomings of their own software.
  - radicalbyte 13y ago
    They've federated Lync and Skype; so you can call Skype users with Lync (and visa versa), and so your boss can log all of your personal chats :) It's doing pretty well in its market (Enterprise) because despite the demands (federation requires two servers) it's better than the competition (WebEx). The client is slightly less annoying than Skype if only for the fact that it doesn't take over your entire computer for IM like the new Skype client does.
    - tracker1 13y ago
      My biggest issues with lync are... 1) the mac client is buggy/crashy and sucks. 2) the mac client doesn't properly register itself so meeting links in outlook work. 3) when you are signed in on multiple systems, phone, home, work, messages aren't synchronized like gtalk/hangouts so you will miss a lot of conversations if you forget to sign out, this happens with my phone a couple times a week. 4) on a retina mac, the screen sharing only works on 1/4 the screen. 5) the UI in the android app is about the worst I've used for a productivity app on android. On windows it's a bit better, but the non-synchronized conversations really irks me to no end.
- pla3rhat3r 13y ago
  If you can figure out how to keep good audio and video quality when there's a connection issue I think you'd make a killing. It's simple telecom 101. Service degrades, quality is garbage. Not sure how ANY service can keep good quality during bandwidth degradation. If you have no reception you have no service. Yeah, Skype sucks but it's suffers from the same simple problems other do.
  - kybernetikos 13y ago
    I think the suggestion was to dramatically degrade video, but keep audio fairly good.
mikevm 13y ago
I agree. It's about time Skype had some real competition.
- adnam 13y ago
  Not wishing to harp on (honest), but we just launched some very real competition. We've spent the last 2 years polishing our app which allows you to make VOIP calls out to US, UK and Canadian numbers for free. You even get assigned your own phone number so people can call you back, even if they don't have the app. We can also supply a data-only SIM card for $15/month. It's called Upptalk, check it out.
rjzzleep 13y ago
maybe because messages are not delivered until the other party is online. ... or because skype clients start to "sync" with old chats when a different device comes online.
DominikR 13y ago
The only reason Whatsapp doesn't have this issue is that it doesn't allow you to login with the same account on multiple devices like Skype does. Both use the same underlying technology (XMPP) and both know how to use the protocol, but it's still very hard to pull off at this scale once you allow multiple devices to login with the same account. Skype just has vastly more features, that's why they have these synchronisation issues.
- mercurial 13y ago
  > Both use the same underlying technology (XMPP) and both know how to use the protocol, but it's still very hard to pull off at this scale once you allow multiple devices to login with the same account. Since when does Skype use XMPP? AFAIK, it uses a closed protocol. It appears that Whatsapp does indeed use XMPP under the hood, though. As for Skype, it's absolutely terrible at handling multiple devices. It would get much better if the app phoned home when a given message arrived on a Skype client with a focused window, in order to prevent/cancel already existing alerts on other devices.
- adnam 13y ago
  This is a real headache. You can either send all the messages (and info/queries) to all logged-in devices, or you select just the most recently used. In the first case, the user gets messages repeated. In the latter, there's the risk that information is lost when a user switches device.
- tracker1 13y ago
  That's funny, but Google Hangouts seems to handle this issue just fine... with Google Voice, my desktop and phones all ring, not a problem... when someone sends me a message in hangouts, it shows up on all my devices... With MS' Lync at work, if I forget to signout on my phone, a few times a day, my phone grabs an inbound message that never shows up on my desktop, and I totally miss the conversation. Skype has a lot of similar issues, and it's painful at best. What I REALLY want is something for the workplace to kill Lync...
- lady_gigi_ 13y ago
  More on the WhatsApp tech stack over at FastCo.Labs: http://www.fastcolabs.com/3026758/inside-erlang-the-rare-programming-language-behind-whatsapps-success http://www.fastcolabs.com/3026758/inside-erlang-the-rare-pro...
balladeer 13y ago
> It boggles my mind why skype randomly pops notifications on my iPhone for messages sent to me months ago. Exactly! What do you have Skype installed on your smartphone? A year from now on you might be saying: "Hey John Doe, I WhatsApped with my SO yesterday and asked her/him can I buy him/her some nice undies. You know what, today Facebook business pages are posting underwear ads on my wall!"
- zaidf 13y ago
  What do you mean?
  - balladeer 13y ago
    I was commenting on your enthusiasm for wishing WhatsApp success.

by zaidf 13y ago

mistermann 13y ago

Oh god do I agree, I could write pages on the different ways in which Skype sucks. Just one example....when the connection is bad, it degrades audio and video, so neither is usable. And we won't even start on the nightmare that's the UI. That MS paid a king's ransom for this and has done nothing with it since boggles the mind.

err4nt 13y ago
When Microsoft purchased Skype they weren't buying software, they were buying users back who use to use MSN Messenger before jumping ship. AIM (AOL's chat client) was only popular in the US, the rest of the world used MSN for years and it finally died in favour of Skype and gTalk. This was their best way of killing MSN messenger, and rolling their remaining users into a useful userbase. That's why the only addition to Skype has been logging in with your Microsoft ID. Microsoft also has a product called 'Lync' that (from what I've heard) is not doing so well, so I believe their goal there again is to roll their users into Skype and eventually discontinue that product. Buying Skype was all about trying to salvage their brand from the shortcomings of their own software.
- radicalbyte 13y ago
  They've federated Lync and Skype; so you can call Skype users with Lync (and visa versa), and so your boss can log all of your personal chats :) It's doing pretty well in its market (Enterprise) because despite the demands (federation requires two servers) it's better than the competition (WebEx). The client is slightly less annoying than Skype if only for the fact that it doesn't take over your entire computer for IM like the new Skype client does.
  - tracker1 13y ago
    My biggest issues with lync are... 1) the mac client is buggy/crashy and sucks. 2) the mac client doesn't properly register itself so meeting links in outlook work. 3) when you are signed in on multiple systems, phone, home, work, messages aren't synchronized like gtalk/hangouts so you will miss a lot of conversations if you forget to sign out, this happens with my phone a couple times a week. 4) on a retina mac, the screen sharing only works on 1/4 the screen. 5) the UI in the android app is about the worst I've used for a productivity app on android. On windows it's a bit better, but the non-synchronized conversations really irks me to no end.
pla3rhat3r 13y ago
If you can figure out how to keep good audio and video quality when there's a connection issue I think you'd make a killing. It's simple telecom 101. Service degrades, quality is garbage. Not sure how ANY service can keep good quality during bandwidth degradation. If you have no reception you have no service. Yeah, Skype sucks but it's suffers from the same simple problems other do.
- kybernetikos 13y ago
  I think the suggestion was to dramatically degrade video, but keep audio fairly good.

mikevm 13y ago

I agree. It's about time Skype had some real competition.

adnam 13y ago
Not wishing to harp on (honest), but we just launched some very real competition. We've spent the last 2 years polishing our app which allows you to make VOIP calls out to US, UK and Canadian numbers for free. You even get assigned your own phone number so people can call you back, even if they don't have the app. We can also supply a data-only SIM card for $15/month. It's called Upptalk, check it out.

rjzzleep 13y ago

maybe because messages are not delivered until the other party is online. ... or because skype clients start to "sync" with old chats when a different device comes online.

DominikR 13y ago

The only reason Whatsapp doesn't have this issue is that it doesn't allow you to login with the same account on multiple devices like Skype does. Both use the same underlying technology (XMPP) and both know how to use the protocol, but it's still very hard to pull off at this scale once you allow multiple devices to login with the same account. Skype just has vastly more features, that's why they have these synchronisation issues.

mercurial 13y ago
> Both use the same underlying technology (XMPP) and both know how to use the protocol, but it's still very hard to pull off at this scale once you allow multiple devices to login with the same account. Since when does Skype use XMPP? AFAIK, it uses a closed protocol. It appears that Whatsapp does indeed use XMPP under the hood, though. As for Skype, it's absolutely terrible at handling multiple devices. It would get much better if the app phoned home when a given message arrived on a Skype client with a focused window, in order to prevent/cancel already existing alerts on other devices.
adnam 13y ago
This is a real headache. You can either send all the messages (and info/queries) to all logged-in devices, or you select just the most recently used. In the first case, the user gets messages repeated. In the latter, there's the risk that information is lost when a user switches device.
tracker1 13y ago
That's funny, but Google Hangouts seems to handle this issue just fine... with Google Voice, my desktop and phones all ring, not a problem... when someone sends me a message in hangouts, it shows up on all my devices... With MS' Lync at work, if I forget to signout on my phone, a few times a day, my phone grabs an inbound message that never shows up on my desktop, and I totally miss the conversation. Skype has a lot of similar issues, and it's painful at best. What I REALLY want is something for the workplace to kill Lync...
lady_gigi_ 13y ago
More on the WhatsApp tech stack over at FastCo.Labs: http://www.fastcolabs.com/3026758/inside-erlang-the-rare-programming-language-behind-whatsapps-success http://www.fastcolabs.com/3026758/inside-erlang-the-rare-pro...

balladeer 13y ago

> It boggles my mind why skype randomly pops notifications on my iPhone for messages sent to me months ago. Exactly! What do you have Skype installed on your smartphone? A year from now on you might be saying: "Hey John Doe, I WhatsApped with my SO yesterday and asked her/him can I buy him/her some nice undies. You know what, today Facebook business pages are posting underwear ads on my wall!"

zaidf 13y ago
What do you mean?
- balladeer 13y ago
  I was commenting on your enthusiasm for wishing WhatsApp success.