And they're broken broken broken, and such by design.
Current app uses Phone as primary and allows for one other-non-phone-device. If you try to log in on e.g. your tablet and computer, or switch between them often, you'll hit any amount of trouble and will get locked out of account.
The current beta has enhancements for multi-device support which may support several non-phone-devices at the same time, even if your phone is offline for short period of time. But it's buggy and your Phone is still your primary and it still won't allow you to sign up without one (it assumes Phone is Me and my life centers around my phone, which is true for my in-laws but not for me:), and the list of limitations is sky high and likely to remain that way.
Whatsapp fundamentally prioritizes end to end encryption; primacy of phone; and convenience of contacts for privacy-non-conscious, over everything else. It is good for those who highly value end to end encryption, for reasons of need or principles.
For those who need multi-device support, Whatsapp is way way way worse than other chat services of today or 1990s. Right now, I am logged in to Hangouts on three computers, tablet, phone and Galaxy Note (whatever we call that these days:). I am available via Hangouts whatever I do and wherever I am. And frankly I find it more private as it doesn't advertise my existence to all my contacts and siphon them off, doesn't require my phone number which is one of my most private pieces of identifying information, and provides me actual privacy and anonymity if I choose, but that's a whole other discussion.
Whatsapp does not, and will for foreseeable future not support my use case. It may or may not be rare, it may or may not be something anybody else thinks is important, but Phone is not the centre of my existence or my sole & preferred method of communication, and as such whatsapp is completely unusable for me. I may be 1% or 0.00001%, and I'm open about that, but this whole notion of "Whatsapp totally works on multi-device" is just getting tiring to misspell - it's right on their FAQ that it is counter-indicated by design by current production version.
Note that the Matrix WhatsApp bridge is fundamentally pretending to be the WhatsApp web client (as I understand it at least). The phone is still the interconnection point and if you turn off your phone no WhatsApp messages would get through to Element. It is improved by being a once off 'pairing' though and you don't need to switch between multiple web clients.
Of course the new 'multi-device' beta might improve the situation but that's not leveraged yet.
Current app uses Phone as primary and allows for one other-non-phone-device. If you try to log in on e.g. your tablet and computer, or switch between them often, you'll hit any amount of trouble and will get locked out of account.
The current beta has enhancements for multi-device support which may support several non-phone-devices at the same time, even if your phone is offline for short period of time. But it's buggy and your Phone is still your primary and it still won't allow you to sign up without one (it assumes Phone is Me and my life centers around my phone, which is true for my in-laws but not for me:), and the list of limitations is sky high and likely to remain that way.
Whatsapp fundamentally prioritizes end to end encryption; primacy of phone; and convenience of contacts for privacy-non-conscious, over everything else. It is good for those who highly value end to end encryption, for reasons of need or principles.
For those who need multi-device support, Whatsapp is way way way worse than other chat services of today or 1990s. Right now, I am logged in to Hangouts on three computers, tablet, phone and Galaxy Note (whatever we call that these days:). I am available via Hangouts whatever I do and wherever I am. And frankly I find it more private as it doesn't advertise my existence to all my contacts and siphon them off, doesn't require my phone number which is one of my most private pieces of identifying information, and provides me actual privacy and anonymity if I choose, but that's a whole other discussion.
Whatsapp does not, and will for foreseeable future not support my use case. It may or may not be rare, it may or may not be something anybody else thinks is important, but Phone is not the centre of my existence or my sole & preferred method of communication, and as such whatsapp is completely unusable for me. I may be 1% or 0.00001%, and I'm open about that, but this whole notion of "Whatsapp totally works on multi-device" is just getting tiring to misspell - it's right on their FAQ that it is counter-indicated by design by current production version.