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Author Why WhatsApp's founders still carry old Nokia phones
tranced
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Joined: Jan 19, 2006
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From: Santo Domingo, wonDeRland
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Posted: 2014-03-06 16:29
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Brian Acton, one of the two founders of WhatsApp, the messaging service that Facebook recently bought for $19 billion, carries this phone:


His partner, Jan Koum, totes this old thing:


WhatsApp’s founders aren’t Luddites. They also carry other, more modern phones. But the pair—spotted carrying these phones by Tim Bradshaw, a San Francisco-based reporter at the Financial Times—understand that despite the great growth numbers and sales figures of smartphones, older, clunkier phones still rule the world. And they aren’t going away anytime soon.

Take the S60 operating system on which Koum and Acton’s phones run. Nokia created it, but no longer supports it. Yet it remains one of the most widely used in India, according to Kavin Mittal, who runs Hike, an Indian messaging app that allows messaging between smartphones and feature (i.e. non-smart) phones too, using ordinary text messages. To crack markets like India, makers of apps must go beyond the worlds of Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android operating systems and look at what people are actually using.


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[ This Message was edited by: tranced on 2014-03-06 15:29 ]
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hihihans
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From: Netherlands
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Posted: 2014-03-06 18:21
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I was expecting a 3310
Tsepz_GP
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From: Johannesburg, South Africa
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Posted: 2014-03-06 18:51
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Both were excellent devices at their time and ran the bare minimum specs, if I'm not mistaken 369mhz Freescale CPU (no dedicated GPU), 96/128mb RAM and QVGA displays, so I can imagine they ensure WhatsApp is super frugal when having to make it not only for multi-core Droids and iPhones but also for very low end phones and dated OSes like Symbian.

That article makes one realise how big of a deal buying WhatsApp was for FB, it will help them reach a HUGE audience, the 'next billion' as they say.
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Twometre
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From: Manzini, Swaziland
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Posted: 2014-04-02 17:53
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The devices are still the best in chating. I for one Im using a Nokia E71 and I am very comfortable with the way it handles intant messages. If you talk aboutt the applications they support they are just the best
Bonovox
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Posted: 2014-04-02 17:59
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I used to have a Nokia E5 the battery life was phenomenal
Phone?? What phone??
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