Introducing Business Chat [video] | Hacker News Reader

Introducing Business Chat [video]

developer.apple.com

68 pointstosh32 comments

Here's some anecdotal evidence of how many businesses in India are using Whatsapp as a business chat app.

1)As a notification system. Went to a tailor to get some shirts stitched. He took my Whatsapp number so he could notify when I could come in for a fitting then then for a pickup.

2)As a sales app with photos. Went to buy some clothes but they didn't have the item in the color I wanted. I was looking for a specific color. The sales guy said they had the color but not in stock. Took down my Whatsapp number and messaged me photos of the item in the color I wanted when they had it in stock. I saw the color and it was the right shade I wanted, asked him to keep my size aside so I can come buy it.

3)As an information sharing app. I wanted to buy toothpaste for my 2 year old and went to the local pharmacy. They had a toothpaste for babies but it didn't say if the toothpaste contained flouride. I said I couldn't buy it without knowing that. The pharmacist took down my Whatsapp number and told me he'll find out and let me know if that brand contained Flouride. I left to pick up groceries and in 10 minutes I had a message from the pharmacist with screenshot of the relevant information he had dug up from the company's website.

Business chat can be really helpful.

In addition lots of collectors - coin collectors, fountain pens, etc utilize whatsapp in India to send samples.

Ebay's messaging might need to be enhanced to allow real time access.

In Kuala Lumpur my wife booked her Pilates classes over WhatsApp. That's how everyone communicates with the studio. If they ever have a bot platform I imagine a reservation system would be a killer app.

I just want to point out that another indication of WhatsApp's prevalence is that you used the term "WhatsApp number" instead of "phone number".

You're absolutely right. Its what the businesses are using. What's your Whatsapp number? Very interesting indeed.

Knowing Apple, but not being able to see the video, one huge question comes to mind:

Will I be able to chat with my customers if they have an Android device or Windows?

Because in most industries today, if you can't interact with your customers with Android devices, you're cutting out half to 90% of your market. So that means that Business Chat is yet another thing that I need to implement twice over, one for Apple's walled garden, and once for the rest of the world (which is mostly Android, but could also include chats directly to customers browsing the store web page on Windows).

In which case why wouldn't I just use a cross-platform solution so I could integrate it just once?

Correct me if I'm jumping to the wrong conclusion here.

My 2 thoughts on the subject:

1. To an extent, it's a solution that can't be fully cross platform. Accessing messaging APIs is very limited on iOS and most apps that support a customer support feature really just use a single compose email view.

2. It's a matter of scale. Large companies can afford to spend the resources on a custom, more cross platform-y solution. Not so much with smaller ones, especially ones dedicated to iOS.

I really hope this is going to be an API. Businesses need to be available on every single platform, not buy a Mac so that they can serve maybe X % of their customers via some sort of proprietary solution.

> it's a solution that can't be fully cross platform.

I call B.S. on that. There's nothing stopping Apple from creating an API that anyone can register with, or even providing an XMPP gateway to allow completely non-Apple platforms to connect.

Apple is choosing to keep their walled garden isolated. It's absolutely a choice.

> Large companies can afford to spend the resources on a custom, more cross platform-y solution.

On scale: Cross platform is cheaper than coding twice. Small companies "dedicated to iOS" are Doing It Wrong. In 2017 it should be considered a best practice to use cross platform development environments for any app development. Between React Native, NativeScript, Xamarin, and yes, even Ionic/Cordova, there are a ton of great options, and there's no compelling reason for 95% of apps to go completely platform-native. And it's worse: Environments like React Native make it cheaper to create for a single platform, much less two platforms. And additional features and ongoing maintenance are also half as costly. It's a win-win-win situation.

I'm late here, but I work for a company (Zingle) that aggregates messaging platforms and presents a unified inbox to our customers.

These kinds of announcements are great for us because businesses will want to be reachable this way but will need to either juggle platforms or come to somebody like us who can provide a cross-channel solution out-of-the-box.

Here's the video description:

> Business Chat is a powerful new way for your customers to get answers to their questions, learn about and purchase your products, and engage with your existing support channels. Integrated into Messages and discoverable through Maps, Siri, Search, as well as your own app and website, Business Chat helps you build persistent, long-lasting relationships with your customers. See how to leverage built-in features like Apple Pay or calendar integration, as well as your own iMessage app in the conversation. Understand how to get started with Business Chat Developer Preview today.

This is a competitor product to Facebook Messenger for Business:

https://www.facebook.com/business/products/messenger-for-bus...

https://messenger.fb.com/

Both can be viewed as an attempt to copy the success of WeChat as a business channel:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WeChat#Official_Accounts

This makes more sense with the context of Apple also adding peer-to-peer payments via Messages and ApplePay.

Interesting. And integration with Apple Pay. So, you are chatting with a customer to help him/her with the sale of a product and while being in the chat the payment can be made and your product delivered. Very nice.

As of 5 June 2017, 5:00 pm UTC-4, there was no video. I predict this is going to be a unifying reviews/information tool for the Apple ecosystem.

But I hope it's also a competitor for Slack.

Reading the description it is entirely a tool for companies to interact with users from multiple Apple applications including Messages. They also had a screenshot that it looks like they took down that seems to reaffirm this.

Edit: looks like I was looking at a different page so screenshot wasn't removed just elsewhere: https://developer.apple.com/business-chat/

Like the Facebook Messenger product.

This is a WWDC session/presentation that is scheduled this Friday 9 June.

"Video Available Soon"

Am I the only one seeing this since yesterday?

Will they allow bots? Looking forward to hearing more details...

This looks like a preliminary move by Apple to establish itself as a viable work computer.

Windows and linux environments currently appear to reign supreme over the workplace, the former because of programs like Skype and outlook integration, the latter for ease of development. I think Apple has a long uphill battle attempting to break into the industry against the value-sell of existing options.

I feel like 90% of the developers I know use Macs, even though a good chunk of the time they are just SSHing to Linux machines to do their work.

And I don't know a developer who develops on a Mac. Seriously, the number is 0. I know a number of artists and designers with them though.

Ahhh, anecdotes.

You don't know a single iOS or MacOS developer?

Do you know less than 10 developers or something? Do you code for Microsoft? Do you live in a country where its nearly impossible to get apple products?

or where the income level makes buying Macs prohibitively expensive

I was responding to a comment that was clearly anecdotal in nature (the comment uses the phrase "currently appear"), and offered my own anecdote in response. I don't think that is an unreasonable thing to respond with.

Also, you know ZERO developers who use Macs? That seems crazy, or you don't know many developers.

Most developers use Windows. [1] The second most popular OS is Linux on Stack Overflow, and some of those may be running Macs.

There are certainly groups where Macs are popular. Startups use a lot of Macs; when I go to a coworking space in Boulder mostly everyone has a Mac. They're super common in cafes as well.

But not everyone uses a Mac. Not everyone likes Macs (myself included).

[1] https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2017#technology-pl...

I am not sure your reference really contradicts what I was saying; it is talking about what 'platform' do you develop for, not what OS you use to do your development (I mean, AWS is listed as the #4 platform, which is not a desktop OS).

All the servers that run the code I write are Linux machines, so I would say I develop 'for' the Linux platform. However, I use a mac laptop to type that code.

It's listing what technologies are used by developers. I would wager very few use Macs to develop for Windows.

The vast majority of developers out there are using Windows. I would believe the majority of start-up engineers are using Macs, but the world of software development is probably 100x that of "start-up engineers."

> Apple to establish itself as a viable work computer.

Apple is already 'established' as a 'viable work computer'. Moreso than Linux at least.

Depending on what industry you're in you'll find quite a solid adoption of Mac computers used as 'daily drivers' for people.

I am not saying Apple is a bad brand; their computers are of high quality, are great for personal use, and are more than capable of productive work.

However, statistically Apple computers certainly are not, in aggregate, established as work computers.

Windows maintains continuing dominance at 90% market share of the desktop market, and optimistic projections from Apple-favorable sites estimate about 8% market share, with Linux at about 1-2%. [1]

You can think Apple tech is good but recognize in the workplace Apple has presently lost and is playing catch-up.

[1] http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/04/11/apple-grows-to-74-...

Idk, I work at an airline at the moment and about 1/3 of people here at the 'head office' use Macs. Higher rates in tech teams.

Sure, maybe these aggregated 'market' figures tell a different story than what I've seen anecdotally, but they seem to be doing fairly okay in 'the workplace'

This is only available for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, not macOS. It's also not a slack competitor but for companies to interact with their users through Apple's software.

Check this page out for different details: https://developer.apple.com/business-chat/

Reply on news.ycombinator.com