Unfortunately, as it's been implemented as opt-in on WhatsApp's side, this isn't really true. Honestly that decision alone means it's kinda dead in the water.

I suspect a good number of people here don't care for any of this - FOSS, chat, voice, and video is where it's at. Interoperability for those last two don't exist yet AFAIK, and they're truly game-changers. Will that change? Does the DMA mention anything other than chat? Perhaps someone could enlighten me.

> Messages, attachments and other materials that you send through BirdyChat to your contacts;

No thanks

Why would I ever want my work to intrude on my personal messaging? My private time is my own. Slack/Teams is perfect because I can mute it on a schedule when I stop for the day.

Anything that is urgent can be managed via Pagerduty or similar on a controlled fashion

"Built for better conversations Reach people with their email, not their phone number. Designed for focused, meaningful exchanges between managers, builders, and collaborators."

Is it using email protocols to send messages or is it using email addresses as a proxy for usernames?

The claim of a drive for better conversations is not really that accurate because better conversations rely on a more universally used app/system than presently exists. Ie, a replacement that would have to grow internationally extraordinarily quickly.

Apple figured that out... iMessage was basically a cheat code to a vast userbase almost instantly. What Apple didn't figure, however, was that iMessage's green/blue thingy that went on for so long didn't really give android/sms users fomo, but really, it just created an unneeded communication barrier. Such barriers are the exact opposite of what is needed for a communication platform to be excellent. Unfortunately, decisions counter to what may be perceived as income generating are difficult to reverse.

These sorts of apps may not be revolutionary enough I fear. I would love to adopt something like this, but Meta continue to make too many billions to let their monopoly on human communication management to be taken away that easily.

From a cursory glance of their CSAE policy, combined with the above, it seems they would be very eager to comply with the dreaded "chat control".

https://www.birdy.chat/privacy

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44736050

* https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.trianguloy...

* Webapp: https://trianguloy.github.io/OpenInWhatsapp_Web/

I'm just grateful for this app, so I thought that maybe other HNers might find it useful.

Can't help but think they are maintained by people close to Meta dev teams and were hand-picked for a malicious compliance, where they can just point to them as examples, and they make onboarding as complicated and expensive as possible for others.

I have long requested this feature for Whatsapp Business, where I can pay an annual subscription just to have more than one number. So I can separate life between Business and Friends.

WhatsApp is not a great name either, but catchy and somewhat simple.

BirdyPo.. I mean BirdyChat sounds like when doves cry. But not as catchy.

Also, I am all in favour of Europeans becoming less dependent on the USA (yet-another-ICE-killing incident today, with video footage contradicting the claims made by the current government - again), but there is kind of ... a weak decision-making process here. Lobbyists sell to Europeans that Amazon data servers in Europe, now comply with european laws. Well, those are still external companies that will hand over data from europeans, so that is not a solution. Why do some media try to insinuate otherwise? Who owns and controls all these media?

Does this mean i can chat with my whatsapp contacts without the whatsapp official app? I've been hating that for years.

I'd love to be able to get rid of it somehow.

Ps: joking aside, this is kinda malicious compliance of WhatsApp, picking a chat app nobody uses.

I wondered whether it can be used with Whatsapp groups: Apprently not yet.

People need signal. It's not perfect, but it's the best available.

No source code, wait list, special compatibility with a for-profit ad based company. No thanks.

I suspect the answer is no, but why?

Remember when IRC was king, and basically, anyone could write an IRC client? Anyone could write a MUD client, or even a Telnet client. Those are open protocols.

When Pidgin came out, it was like a breath of fresh air for me. In the early 90s I had multiple IM accounts (starting with ICQ!) and unifying them, especially under a Linux client, was a dream come true.

But of course, AIM purported to use Oscar at the time, but they really hated F/OSS and 3rd-party clients, and so did the other proprietary guys, so it became cat-and-mouse to keep the client compatible while the servers always tried to break their functionality.

Now this dumb announcement comes out that a 3rd party has (apparently legally) established interop with a Meta property with (I am guessing) a completely proprietary, undocumented, secret protocol underneath.

I am not impressed. I am McKayla Maroney unimpressed.

I want open protocols and I want client devs who are free to produce clients in freeform, as long as they can follow the protocol specs. Now we have email clients who speak SMTP, IMAP, and POP3, including the "secured, encrypted" versions of those protocols. We should ask for nothing less when it comes to other communications.

This isn't a general chat app alternative.

Find this exclusionary and distasteful.

On the second screen of the app there is already an infuriating bug: they ask to give your work email because than you go hire in priority on their invite-only waiting list. So you type in your email again and again and again, alternating between all your emails, but you keep returning to the form asking for your work email. You check those emails to see if they send you something to activate your account but nothing. Exasperated you try the only other button, sign up with private email instead. Guess that works, because you leave the infinite loop. But than zilch, nada, nothing.

Don't these script-kiddies use their own app?

Does WhatsApp charge money for this? If not, why would a business use their API? They could simply create an app to directly talk to their customers, or am I missing something?