While I agree with all your points it's still the shittiest implementation that I have seen. I have been using Telegram Web, and it works delightfully without having to connect my phone to the web. Line has it's own desktop program since at least a year.

I have no idea why they decided to go this route, none whatsoever. It looks more like a hack than an official solution. I've been following Whatsapp since 2010, and to me it always has looked like a bad company. They haven't really taken care of the security of their platform until they have reached 500 million users. The more I read about Whatsapp, the more I think that they just got lucky.

This is a very similar implementation with how Blackberry Blend is implemented. Although, the core value was for security. It's definitely hard to understand what was the motivation for WhatsApp to go this route or what their future plans are.

You're right it does feel like a hack, but one that works fine for me at least. I guess my comments were those of a user thinking about how it works for me, not a technical critique at all.

> not needing to keep grabbing my phone to see what's been said, is a great change for me. One that I was complaining about just the other day without realising this was around the corner.

Just try, with some friends, to switch to Telegram for a day or two. It is like Whatsapp but has open source clients for most platforms that always sync between them. I have the Windows and Android clients open most of the time and don't even think any more about whether I have to contact this or that friend by typing on my laptop, desktop or phone.

There's other arguments like the open API, the team's dedication to security from the start, the ability to invite people to chat with you via a URL/username (so they won't know your phone number), it has an open sticker system (using WebP), etc. but the way the clients work seamlessly is why I can't stop bothering those people I still start up Whatsapp or Skype for to make them switch (and quite a few have already).

I'll try it out (installing app on phone now), but can't see it coming close to replacing either Skype or WhatsApp. Skype because in many of my circles is the de facto for business communication, WhatsApp because it's so simple (no need to add new contacts - they're already there!)

On the subject of telegram's "dedicated to security from the start" - I'm sure I remember (though could be either wrong or outdated) that it's encryption was mocked by experts when it launched, which is (I think) why I never bothered with it before now. Is it actually as secure as it wants to be?

Here's a start of what you need to know;

http://paulmillr.com/posts/the-story-of-telegram/

Have you considered Google Hangouts? I tend to use that for most of my chatting, so never really "got" whatsapp.

I don't know anyone who uses them - or at least, nobody has ever suggested I use them. And I haven't been interested enough to try myself to consider converting other users. I've got enough communication routes already without adding a new one unless it can either replace one of the current ones (I won't get all my friends who use whatsapp to switch so it won't do that) or I need it to talk to a subset of people I know (not the case currently with hangouts - this was why I started using whatsapp in the first place, though)

Hangouts is pretty good. Now it doesn't require you to have Google+ account, and (unlike Whatsapp) you don't _need_ to use a phone number that's tied to a telco, and it handles multiple accounts pretty well.