{"id":2866,"date":"2018-07-08T19:37:29","date_gmt":"2018-07-08T10:37:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2018-07-08\/2866"},"modified":"2018-07-08T19:37:29","modified_gmt":"2018-07-08T10:37:29","slug":"a-minor-warning-about-whatsapp-the-pc-version-doesnt-work-if-your-phone-breaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2018-07-08\/2866","title":{"rendered":"A Minor Warning About WhatsApp: The PC Version Doesn&#8217;t Work If Your Phone Breaks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<div class='ic' itemscope itemtype='http:\/\/schema.org\/Photograph'><a name=\"i123600\" href='\/i\/JF4_123600-HDR.jpg' itemprop='image'\n><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/i\/JF4_123600-HDR_sm.jpg\" width=\"690\" height=\"459\"\nalt=\"Sunrise from Mt. Fuji just prior to a storm -- Hakuunso on Mt. Fuji (\u5bcc\u58eb\u5c71\u306e\u767d\u96f2\u8358) -- Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi, Japan -- Copyright 2018 Jeffrey Friedl, https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/ -- This photo is licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/4.0\/ (non-commercial use is freely allowed if proper attribution is given, including a link back to this page on http:\/\/regex.info\/ when used online)\"\nid=\"i123600_HDR\"\ntitle=\"Sunrise from Mt. Fuji just prior to a storm -- Hakuunso on Mt. Fuji (\u5bcc\u58eb\u5c71\u306e\u767d\u96f2\u8358) -- Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi, Japan -- Copyright 2018 Jeffrey Friedl, https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/ -- This photo is licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/4.0\/ (non-commercial use is freely allowed if proper attribution is given, including a link back to this page on http:\/\/regex.info\/ when used online)\"\/><\/a>\n<br\/><span class=\"camera-info robots-nocontent\">Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 24mm &mdash; <sup>1<\/sup><big>\/<\/big>80 sec, <span class='f'>f<\/span>\/4.5, ISO 100 &mdash;\n<a href='\/imageinfo.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%2Fregex.info%2Fi%2FJF4_123600-HDR.jpg'>map &amp; image data<\/a> &mdash; <a href='\/blog\/proximity\/i\/JF4_123600-HDR.jpg'>nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\n<br\/><span class='caption'>Sunrise from Mt. Fuji<\/span>\n<br\/>just prior to a storm\n<meta itemprop='url' content='http:\/\/regex.info\/i\/JF4_123600-HDR.jpg'\/>\n<meta itemprop='creator' content='Jeffrey Friedl'\/>\n<meta itemprop='copyrightHolder' content='Jeffrey Friedl'\/>\n<meta itemprop='dateCreated' content='2018-07-04'\/>\n<meta itemprop='about' content=\"Sunrise from Mt. Fuji just prior to a storm -- Hakuunso on Mt. Fuji (\u5bcc\u58eb\u5c71\u306e\u767d\u96f2\u8358) -- Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi, Japan -- Copyright 2018 Jeffrey Friedl, https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/ -- This photo is licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/4.0\/ (non-commercial use is freely allowed if proper attribution is given, including a link back to this page on http:\/\/regex.info\/ when used online)\"\/><\/div>\n\n\n<p>The photo above is from a hike on Mt. Fuji <span class='nobr'>a few<\/span> days ago, which I'll write about soon (<span class='nobr'>I hope<\/span>),\nbut today's post is about the WhatsApp messaging service, and something <span class='nobr'>I discovered<\/span> about it\nduring my Fuji trip.<\/p>\n\n<p>On a bicycle ride on Mt. Fuji, while in the middle of taking <span class='nobr'>a photo<\/span> with my iPhone, the\niPhone just spazzed out and died, and <span class='nobr'>I was<\/span> left without <span class='nobr'>a way<\/span> to contact the\nothers <span class='nobr'>I was<\/span> traveling with. Unfortunately, the ride went some hours longer than <span class='nobr'>I\nhad<\/span> anticipated, and I'm sure my friends worried.<\/p>\n\n<p>When I returned to the hotel, my friends had gone out and left <span class='nobr'>a message<\/span> for me expressing their worry,\nso <span class='nobr'>I wanted<\/span> to contact them using WhatsApp on my laptop. <span class='nobr'>But it wouldn<\/span>'t connect.... it turns out that\nWhatsApp won't do <i>anything<\/i> if it can't contact your phone first. <span class='nobr'>My phone<\/span> was <span class='nobr'>a useless<\/span> brick,\nso <span class='nobr'>I was<\/span> stuck.<\/p>\n\n<p>Other messaging services that <span class='nobr'>I use<\/span> both on my phone and my laptop &mdash; LINE and Facebook Messenger &mdash; worked fine, so\n<span class='nobr'>I could<\/span> contact others to report my mostly-unreachable-while-on-the-road state, but <span class='nobr'>I was<\/span> cut off from everyone for whom WhatsApp\nwas my main method of communication. This was unfortunate.<\/p>\n\n<p>I've a special spot in my heart for WhatsApp, because it was created by <a href='\/blog\/2014-02-20\/2391'><span class='nobr'>a\ncouple<\/span> of friends<\/a>, and <span class='nobr'>I gave<\/span> them some minor help early on. <span class='nobr'>I was one<\/span> of its first users, before it was <span class='nobr'>a messaging<\/span> app, and\nwas literally the first WhatsApp user in Japan. <span class='nobr'>But these<\/span> days <span class='nobr'>I tend<\/span> to use LINE more, both because it has more reach in Japan\n(WhatsApp has much more reach outside of Japan), and because <span class='nobr'>I find<\/span> that LINE has more features that are important to me.<\/p>\n\n<p>If you use WhatsApp, just know that you're running <span class='nobr'>a risk<\/span>: if your phone dies, or is lost\/stolen, or runs out of battery,\nyou're cut off from all your contacts, even if you have WhatsApp running on your computer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The photo above is from a hike on Mt. Fuji a few days ago, which I'll write about soon (I hope), but today's post is about the WhatsApp messaging service, and something I discovered about it during my Fuji trip.<\/p> <p>On a bicycle ride on Mt. Fuji, while in the middle of taking a photo with my iPhone, the iPhone just spazzed out and died, and I was left without a way to contact the others I was traveling with. Unfortunately, the ride went some hours longer than I had anticipated, and I'm sure my friends worried.<\/p> <p>When I returned [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2866"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2866\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}