If you’ve ever found text messaging to be too limited and wished that you could actually chat with your SMS contacts, you’re pretty likely to love this app. Available for Blackberry, Android, iOS, and Nokia phones, Whatsapp markets itself as a “cross platform mobile messaging app.” Not too shabby, eh?
It’s basically a surrogate Blackberry Messenger that works on all cell phones. It lets you send one another text, audio, and video messages. On top of that, it also features group chat. And it gets better.
The site makes the rather tall claim that it’s completely free, basically throwing the cost of SMS out the window and replacing in favor of something that’s both more advanced and faster. That last bit sounds a touch curious, doesn’t it? After all, why would phone companies allow an app like this to siphon away all that valuable income they extort from their customers? And why would such a service be provided free of charge?
Turns out, it isn’t.
Upon downloading the app, it makes it clear that there’ll be a year-long, free subscription. After that point, the cost will increase to $1.99/year. Peanuts, I know, but still not entirely free. Plus, there’s the fact of how it gets around avoiding text messaging charges. From what I understand, it uses your smartphone’s already existing internet data plan. The one you use for web browsing.
Which, in many cases, isn’t going to be unlimited.
Sure, it’ll be free if you connect your phone to a WiFi connection. If you do that, you’ll be able to chat to your hearts content. Otherwise, I could foresee Whatsapp slowly eating away at your data allowance for a month, eventually nickle-and-diming you into a rather considerable cell phone bill, depending on how much you use it.
As we all know, data plans are rather abhorrently overpriced depending where you live.
Still, it’s a pretty awesome idea, and it definitely beats text messaging, a technology which is, more and more, seeming altogether archaic in today’s cloud-driven world.
You can learn more about Whatsapp by visiting their website.
The PCMech.com weekly newsletter has been running strong for over 8 years. Sign up to get tech news, updates and exclusive content - right in your inbox. Also get (several) free gifts.
