I wish that WhatsApp could make a public API. I'm very thankful that Facebook is integrating WhatsApp into their services, because that gives me hope that a true web interface will be developed.

For me, it takes between 10 hours (worst case) to 5 minutes (best case) to open WhatsApp.

My iPhone 4S is too old, so opening WhatsApp gives a message "This version of WhatsApp ha..., Update WhatsApp, Your update will be free of cha...". Clicking Update WhatsApp opens the App Store, and clicking Update results in another error message: "This application requires iOS 10.0 or later."

So I only use WhatsApp through BlueStacks Android emulator on my personal laptop. That's what leads to the 10 hour worst-case response time: a full working day, including commute. The 5 minute best-case is because BlueStacks takes a very long time to open, and runs my laptop fans really loud.

This is not only a pain point with WhatsApp, it's also a problem with WeChat, KakaoTalk, LINE, even 9gag (for posting videos).

Meanwhile, email continues to work just fine on my decade-old phone, mbasic.facebook.com is particularly speedy, iMessage still works, and Hacker News is great :)