We tested MTN's competitor to WhatsApp

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Jamie McKane

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We tested MTN's competitor to WhatsApp

The Ayoba messaging app, which is owned by MTN, was recently made available in South Africa.

Ayoba allows users to send messages to their contacts using data rather than their airtime - even to users who don't have the app installed.
 
Online backups of your messaging history are automatically initiated every 24 hours. These backups cannot be enabled or disabled, nor can the 24 hour period be changed.
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:rolleyes:
 
Ayoba said that it cannot read messages sent using its platform.
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Except for the SMSs. Why they don't allow non-mtn customers to reply via sms is shortsighted especially since they're reinventing the wheel here.
 
We already have Moya that is zero-rated data across all four major networks in SA. Why do we keep getting more and more messengers that only work in their own ecosystem? Imagine if GMail could only send mail to other GMail users. We'd consider it useless.
 
StefanB7 said:
How can their system be end-to-end encrypted if they have to know the contents, to compose the SMS sent to the person if they don't have ayoba?
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Maybe one end is you and the other is their server.
:ROFL:
 
This is 10 years late to the party.

They should have dropped the price of SMSs to zero when the first instant messengers for phones came out. Instead they incentivised everyone to switch to the cheap competition.
 
Really? They launch this 10 years later and expect it to compete, something like Telegram (with plenty of additional features over WhatsApp) is struggling?

What differentiating features does this have over WhatsApp?
 
Thought I'd give this app a try, but the stupid thing won't even send me a verification sms. What a waste of time and data. Mxm...
 
They have something here, the app to sms feature will suit many that don't have a smartphone, and for free. So that's at least a positive mark in their corner (not going to comment on the overall app and other features that lack from what we're used to with whatsapp)

however, how can they claim end-to-end encryption when a message is sent from the app to the sms recipient? AFAIK, sms isn't encrypted. The "end" would stop at the service that decrypts this message to send it to the user without the app.

So in that, I call BS, at least it's not a direct competitor to whatsapp in the traditional sense and has features whatsapp doesn't have (message to non-smartphone for free)
 
Mike Hoxbig said:
Really? They launch this 10 years later and expect it to compete, something like Telegram (with plenty of additional features over WhatsApp) is struggling?

What differentiating features does this have over WhatsApp?
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You don't like to read do you?

The recipient doesn't need a smartphone that has whatsapp on it to receive messages, and the sender can send it for free
 
envo said:
You don't like to read do you?

The recipient doesn't need a smartphone that has whatsapp on it to receive messages, and the sender can send it for free
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I read that bit. Nothing special since the recipient needs to be on MTN to be able to reply. So it's back to the good old days of having to keep track of who's on what network...
 
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