The (only/main) advantage of Telegram over Whatsapp is for me: They have an open API, such that I can get a desktop client. (There is already a commandline version for linux)
Also in principle there is end-to-end encryption, which is not a reason I switched. I'm not sure if this feature has been there when the 200k crypto contest went up with its criticism, but in principle it should be completely dependent on the client, which is opensource.
Too bad XMPP/Jabber did not get a breakthrough, what is the reason for that? No user friendly client? Noone putting enough advertising into it; you can't make money with it?
In germany there is currently a hype of Threema. Every magazine and newspaper writes about it being secure with end-to-end encryption. Even IT magazines just write naively about it, ignoring completely that it's closed source and noone can even see slightly behind the curtains.
I rather prefer to see/know the flaws (Telegram) than use a proprietary solution that makes the masses "feel" good. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7281338
Even that Threema costs some money makes people more confident of its security, with the reasoning that with a free solution you are not a customer but rather the product and you pay with your data.
The desktop client/multiple platform thing is so huge, I don't understand why WhatsApp, for instance, avoids this.
My group of friends uses a lot of iMessage, and I really hate the fact that I can neither use an iMessage app sitting in front of a Windows/Linux machine, nor can I use the iMessage app to view/respond to SMS from people who don't have iOS devices.
Who wants to take your phone out of your pocket and hunt and peck on a tiny keyboard when you can just type ~80 wpm on the computer in front of you?
Why not? By virtue of my profession, I spend many hours in front of a computer during the day. Every time I receive a text -- which is pretty often, I'm wishing I could read respond on the device I'm currently using, instead of switching screens/keyboards.
What would make someone prefer using the other device?
One of the main reasons I stick with Google Voice for my primary number is so I can send and receive SMS messages from a computer with a keyboard. There's a Windows 8 app so I can use it on my desktop and Surface natively, and it works well enough on my iPhone too, so it's everywhere for me.
I wouldn't even consider replacing that with WhatsApp, specifically because they don't have/allow clients on desktop/laptop devices. As in, I thought about checking WhatsApp out, searched for info on desktop clients, a Trillian plugin, or something, and immediately ruled out using it at all based on the lack of those things.
Don't know why this is being downvoted, because it's probably true. Maybe not for the crowed of HN, but outside of that a lot of people use phones/tablets a lot more than laptops - especially younger people.
I think there were two major technical issues stopping the overwhelming adoption of mobile XMPP/Jabber:
1) Apple push notifications were the only method of reliably delivering on demand messages to iOS devices, so to provide expected (app in background) behavior on iOS, someone had to provide an always on proxy between XMPP and iOS push notifications, and that proxy had to have your credentials. This required ongoing expense on the server side combined with a client side app.
2) XMPP is connection oriented and doesn't handle the disruption of disconnections and changing IPs/networks when a mobile device roams or transitions from wifi to cellular data.
On the political side, I think GTalk had, by far, the largest network of XMPP users. As I understand it, they've tried to solve some of these problems with proprietary protocol changes which resulted in the Hangouts app and the subsequent dropping of full XMPP support by google: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/05/google-abandons-open-s...
Also in principle there is end-to-end encryption, which is not a reason I switched. I'm not sure if this feature has been there when the 200k crypto contest went up with its criticism, but in principle it should be completely dependent on the client, which is opensource.
Too bad XMPP/Jabber did not get a breakthrough, what is the reason for that? No user friendly client? Noone putting enough advertising into it; you can't make money with it?
In germany there is currently a hype of Threema. Every magazine and newspaper writes about it being secure with end-to-end encryption. Even IT magazines just write naively about it, ignoring completely that it's closed source and noone can even see slightly behind the curtains.
I rather prefer to see/know the flaws (Telegram) than use a proprietary solution that makes the masses "feel" good. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7281338 Even that Threema costs some money makes people more confident of its security, with the reasoning that with a free solution you are not a customer but rather the product and you pay with your data.