Features
J. Angelo Racoma
14:21, 22 Aug 2013
We take a look at some of the best cross-platform IM apps for iOS, Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry
Short messaging service or SMS has been the killer app of mobile telephony since it rose in popularity in the mid 1990s. But today, mobile messaging has gone beyond simple short messages. With voice calls, presence indicators and rich content, messaging has evolved into a whole new user experience, with apps like WhatsApp, Viber, WeChat and LINE coming out on top.
Traditional SMS is dead. Long live cross platform IM apps
Your choice of cross-platform messaging service will usually reflect several things: your personality, your circle of friends, and your communication needs. Are you fond of stickers and emoticons? Do you prefer to have read-receipts? Do you play social games? Do you need voice calls with your messaging service? Or perhaps you just want straightforward text messaging without too many bells and whistles.
As mobile messaging apps release their latest versions, the added features will usually level the playing field, leaving users with a bevy of choices. But before you jump to whichever bandwagon, consider these main highlights from among the popular messaging apps today.
WhatsApp
While WhatsApp is certainly not the first cross-platform messaging app out there, it was certainly one of the biggest initial winners in the space. Initially a premium $0.99 app for the iPhone, WhatsApp has since branched out to Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry as a free app, and the iOS variant is now also free.
WhatsApp initially came with text-only features, although as the network recently breached the 300 million user mark, it introduced voice messaging (although not voice calls yet).
Here are a few highlights:
300M users as of July 2013
Popular in the UK, Latin America, Europe and Singapore
Voice messages for the latest versions (no calls yet)
“Last seen” presence indicator
Automatically adds friends according to their mobile number
Group chats
Different alerts for group chats and single chats
No customizable alerts for contacts or groups, though
No stickers, although future support is hinted at
No custom wallpapers
WhatsApp is also available for non-smartphones: Nokia S40 and Symbian S60 devices.
LINE
The brainchild of Japanese company NHN Naver (actually a subsidiary of South Korean NHN), LINE is the most recent mobile IM app to gain a meteoric rise, having fast surpassed 200 million users in only a span of months. LINE is free, but the company earns millions from selling premium stickers and emoticons, which are quite popular in certain markets, like in Asia.
More than just a chat network, LINE is also a social network and it offers a suite of add-on apps, like LINE Camera and LINE Games, which enable users to engage and exchange rich content with friends.
LINE also has a desktop client, which makes it an excellent app for collaborating in a workplace setting. Users can get notifications and can chat simultaneously on desktop and mobile clients.
Here are a few highlights:
200M users globally as of July 2013, wherein half of these users registered within 19 months of launch
Provides basic messaging, but is a bit more interesting because of stickers and emoji
Voice calls available across iOS, Android and desktop clients. No call support on Windows Phone, though.
New features were added including the “Download All” option, new emoji and stickers, new themes featuring other Mascots, cumulative download games, “LINE Free Coins”, and “LINE News”
Toggle notifications per group chat room
10,000 characters for one-on-one chats were added in LINE’s “Notes” feature
Posting stickers and photos is pretty much like child’s play
Group chatting for up to 100 people
Free video calls, photo messages, and location sharing
Easy to operate with storage system on DFS
Privacy/report button once users receive invites to join multi-person chats
Recent reports say Thai police seeks to use LINE to track down criminals, which might be a concern for privacy enthusiasts
Download LINE for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, Mac, Windows and Windows 8. LINE is also available for the Nokia ASHA feature phone platform.
Viber
Founded by American-Israeli entrepreneur Talmon Marco, Viber is another cross platform/VoIP app that lets users connect with the world freely. The software supports several desktop and mobile platforms, including Android, Mac, Symbian, BlackBerry, Windows Phone, Microsoft Windows, iOS, Series 40, and soon Linux.
Viber offers the best HD quality calls and group messaging sessions for both 3G/4G and Wi-Fi network users. A boon for emerging markets with low connectivity speeds, Viber promises clear calls even for connections as slow as 8 Kbps. The interface on Windows Phone was also upgraded to allow users place live tiles on their home screens.
Here are a few highlights:
No invitations, alias, or registration required. Viber uses phone book data to connect you with existing friends.
Offers better quality calls and video messaging using 3G or LTE, although slower data speeds are also supported
Free text, video and photo messaging and location sharing
Latest update brings in-demand features such as new stickers and emoticons, photo doodles, “seen” status, VoIP calling, message popups
Version 3.1 supports Viber desktop application on Mac and Windows
Seamless call transfers from phone to desktop, meaning you can make calls to a friend on your desktop without the call getting cut off
Multi-language support
Syncs with your current mobile device’s contacts
200M users in over 193 countries as of second quarter of 2013
The app has some device-specific bugs, though (HTC One and MacBook Air)
Download Viber on iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, Nokia, Samsung Bada, Mac and Windows.
WeChat
A creation of Chinese internet company Tencent, WeChat is also a free mobile messaging app. Given China’s lead in mobile subscriber numbers (which surpassed a billion users earlier this year), WeChat also has among the biggest subscriber counts: 400 million in China alone, which includes about 100 million international users, according to WeChat.
However, unlike Viber and LINE, WeChat’s new animated stickers are a premium offering, and some have speculated that downloading the WeChat app itself might soon also come with a nominal fee. Due to strong opposition from users though, WeChat has promised to be free to use and download. WeChat has launched WeChat 5.0 together with its Sticker Shop.
Many key features were also upgraded including the revamped “Official Accounts” for celebrities and businesses, and an improved UI that makes the app clutter-free and more convenient for users.
Here are a few highlights:
Supports live chats and video calls
Saves ‘Favorite’ Messages or Moments from chats – similar to “Like” in Facebook
Hold Together function allows users to add friends easily through proximity
Paid games and stickers
Users can make private one-on-one calls
Supports other messaging plugins like Drift Bottle and Look Around which are paid features
Videos can be posted and shared on Facebook and Twitter links, but personalization is also a premium feature.
Offers Sticker Shop, game center, mobile payment options, and speech recognition
Scans bar codes, words, and street views
Allows users to send chat history to another device
Friends can be added using QR Name Card or WeChat ID
400M users, with about 100M outside of China
Download WeChat for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Nokia S40, Symbian Keyboard, BlackBerry 5-7, and BlackBerry 10.
Google Hangouts
Google launched its Hangouts app earlier this year to much fanfare. Intending the app to be a unified cross-platform messenger across desktop and mobile, Hangouts replaced the old Google Talk app built into most Android devices.
Hangouts is available on iOS and Android, as well as on the web (with focus on Google’s own Chrome browser). Hangouts also replaces Google’s old Google+ Messages service, which lived within the social network.
Hangouts offers video-calling, one-on-one chats, group chats and sending of multimedia in chat sessions.
Some highlights:
Hangouts is a free download for iOS and Android, and was supposedly an automatic replacement of the old Google Talk app after update.
While Hangouts offers video calling, it does not support voice-only calls at this time, although this feature is in the works.
Chat notifications can be muted on a per-person or per-group basis.
The app supports blocking of unwanted people.
Chats can be archived.
The mobile app (both Android and iOS) supports multiple users. This also supports accounts that use two-step Gmail verification.
Download Hangouts on iOS, Android and Chrome.
Facebook Messenger
Facebook Messenger started out as the social network’s messaging function within the full Facebook app. With the popularity of messaging apps and with its recent focus on mobile, Facebook released a standalone Messenger app for both iOS and Android.
The Facebook Messenger app has all the features of the built-in Facebook messaging service, plus a few more. For one, Messenger introduced VoIP calling between users who use the mobile client.
The advantage of Messenger is that you can simply chat with your current network of Facebook friends without having to invite them to a new network. However, not everyone is comfortable with using Facebook to communicate, especially with privacy concerns.
Some highlights:
Messenger users can call other users on the Facebook Messenger app.
Calling feature is voice-only, though, and does not support video. Also, Messenger users cannot call users logged in to Facebook on their web browsers.
Messenger syncs chats and messages across desktop and mobile devices.
On the Android app, Messenger introduced the “Chat Heads” feature, which popped up a floating chat head, allowing quick replying from any screen. This feature does not work on iOS, although the full Facebook app offers chat head support from within the app.
Facebook has also released a standalone Messenger app for Windows.
Apart from its own messenger apps, Facebook actually allows access to its chat network through Jabber or XMPP, which is the same protocol that Google Talk uses.
Download Facebook Messenger on iOS, Android and Windows. A Firefox extension is also available.
Conclusion
Cross-platform messaging is here to stay, and whichever app you choose, it will likely be the app that most of your friends are already using. With persistent data connections, you are always reachable anywhere and any time. This might be good, if you need to be always in touch. This might be distracting if your phone keeps on alerting you of new messages while at work, on vacation or while spending time with loved ones (but that’s a topic worthy of another story).
Which messaging app do you currently use? Are you keen on trying a new one?
Apps
S40
Windows Phone
Android
BlackBerry OS
iOS
Whatsapp
LINE
Google Hangouts
WeChat
Viber