JioPhone to bring WhatsApp to feature phones

These days, you need to have WhatsApp installed in your smartphone for staying connected to the world. The messenger app has become an absolute necessity to communicate with your peers. Therefore, Reliance’s new JioPhone, which was launched last month with an attractive scheme, also needs to have WhatsApp to survive in a market dominated by smartphones. It seems that eggheads at Reliance are already working with WhatsApp to bring the popular messenger to the JioPhone.

A report by Factor Daily has stated that Reliance Jio is already in talks with WhatsApp to bring a watered-down version of the popular messenger on the JioPhone. WhatsApp as of now has been made for popular smartphone platforms like Android, iOS and Windows Phone (which is now dead). The JioPhone uses KaiOS, which is loosely based on the Firefox OS — an OS which didn’t see much popularity in a market dominated by Android and iOS. Therefore, if Reliance wants to bring WhatsApp to the JioPhone, they will have to make a special version, particularly for the JioPhone.

Although Jio will provide its own suite of apps with the JioPhone, which also includes the JioChat messenger app, the lack of WhatsApp on the platform could be a deal breaker for many. WhatsApp is one of the reasons to push feature phone users to the world of smartphones as well generate revenue for the network providers.

A nostalgic feature phone was launched in the country recently with a lot of hype — the Nokia 3310. The phone has appealing aesthetics and a list of features that could have made it the best seller in its category like its predecessor. However, the lack of the platform to support WhatsApp along with certain other features has depreciated the phone of the glory it deserves.

With WhatsApp available on the JioPhone, a majority of the rural population will have access to modern methods of communication. With support for 4G VoLTE, more of India’s population will be able to witness the digital revolution happening in the present.