Comment by Retric
4 years ago
But we aren’t really talking about today we are asking about what happens when a new phone shows up without it. You don’t need to sell to everyone on day one they just need to erode dominance fast enough that it doesn’t stop adoption.
> we are asking about what happens when a new phone shows up without it
Nobody buys it.
Do Linux phones have access to WhatsApp? If not, there is no point. It will be a perfectly good mobile computer but it will never actually replace the one in my pocket. And that's coming from a programmer who loves Linux. Imagine the utter disdain normal people would have for a phone that doesn't even run WhatsApp.
Whatsapp used to be openly hostile against efforts for providing native client applications even for platforms they never plan to support themselves. Going as far as effectively attacking open source project developers working the clients - for an example see: https://reviewjolla.blogspot.com/2014/10/got-banned-in-whats...
(Sailfish OS is a Linux based mobile distro.)
That sucks. I hate when companies do this. How would they even know what kind of client is talking to their servers?
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A Linux phone could run WhatsApp if the Linux distro was implemented in such a way that it could run Android apps (remember Android is basically just a runtime on top of the Linux kernel) and since AOSP is FOSS this is very doable and legal.
How commercially successful it'd be is still a different story, but it could run WhatsApp.
Only if WhatsApp never activates SafetyNet: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28731431
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