WhatsApp Petition for MeeGo, One last push before contacting WhatsApp

Back in November we shared with you a petition to get whatsapp on the Nokia N9, MeeG0-Harmattan platform. Whilst N9 is the Qt Hero device WhatsApp is not in Qt so it isn’t as easy a job to make Symbian version.

http://www.change.org/petitions/whatsapp-inc-develop-a-nokia-n9-meego-harmattan-version-of-whatsapp-messenger

From 200 or so signatures to 2500, you guys voted your support. Whilst some were sceptical about where this would lead, (I know I was but still hopeful) @trashr0x/Constantinos Orphanides who organised the petition says he’s got in touch with  Sotiris Makriyiannis, Nokia’s Head of MeeGo Applications.  They feel that’s a sensible number to start sending letters to try and negotiate something with WhatsApp but Constantinos contacted us to see if we could go again for a final push and promote it.

Whilst it might not get anywhere, it’s good to show your support if it’s something you agree with.

WhatsApp Messenger is a proprietary, cross-platform instant messaging application for smartphones. In addition to basic messaging, WhatsApp Messenger users can send each other images, video and audio media messages. However, WhatsApp have announced on their website that they have no plans for developing WhatsApp for the Nokia N9 and the MeeGo-Harmattan platform.

We understand their business decision, as MeeGo-Harmattan is considered, somewhat, a dead platform, as Nokia have no plans to release other devices sporting that OS (unless stated otherwise in the future). However, the Nokia N9 has been highly appraised by online tech journals and it’s sales have been off the charts wherever it was made available (as reported by various techblogs, mobile operators and third-party retailers). We are not making this petition to express dissatisfaction or hatred to WhatsApp whatsoever, but to let them know that we have grown accustomed to their program, and we would love to have it on our Nokia N9s.

WhatsApp, even if we are considered a ‘small’ community when compared to iOS, Android, or Symbian, we still want to be considered a part of YOUR ecosystem. You have a loyal fan-base who would like to see your application on their smartphones, to make their experience more intuitive. So, the question is not “why to make a Nokia N9 version?”, but rather “a lot of Nokia N9 owners want this and love our product, so WHY NOT?”.

You might not be a what’s app user, you don’t have to be to vote. Just perhaps support Qt? Perhaps they could make WhatsApp into Qt to make it easier to develop for Nokia’s future Qt platforms?

BTW the last things you and the Nokia community have been involved in voting in have gone relatively well.

• The Nokia Lumia beat the Nintendo 3DS, only closely losing to the Galaxy Nexus.
• After about a couple of weeks the Qt for Windows Phone went from about 700 to over 2500. It’s been seen on more and more blogs and is now on 2800.
• Nokia Lumia 800 is King of Smartphones from Channel 5’s survey. Over 65% of the votes to Nokia Lumia. haha.

The Nokia and the WP community have been actively voting on the three above. I’m sure the Nokia/Symbian/MeeGo folks can equally give this WhatsApp survey a big final push of support too.

Update. Seem I have misinterpreted the level to which Constantinos was in talks with MeeGo head apps (and the use of ‘We’) though he was in discussion over twitter.

Two months ago I started a petition which you also supported (http://www.change.org/petitions/whatsapp-inc-develop-a-nokia-n9-meego-harmattan-version-of-whatsapp-messenger). We have reached a staggering 2500+ signatures, which is quite an amazing feat as it was done in such a short amount of time, using mouth-by-mouth for promoting it. NokiaN9Lovers on Facebook, MyNokiaBlog, MeeGoExperts and N9-Apps.com were some of the supporters that helped reach this goal. This petition also got me in some conversations with Sotiris Makriyiannis (Head of MeeGo Applications @ Nokia) about the N9-WhatsApp issue.
We believe that this is a sensible number of signatures to start sending out letters to WhatsApp. But before doing so, we are going for the final push: we will try to promote the petition as much as possible for the remaining weeks of January, after which we will start communicating with WhatsApp. As such, I would like to kindly ask you whether it would be possible to re-feature the petition for a final time on MeeGoExperts.com and your followers on Twitter. The N9 community is growing stronger everyday, and gathering 2500 signatures in ~2 months is a testament to that.

Category: Applications, MeeGo, Nokia