Will Jio Phone 2 Help WhatsApp, YouTube Reach the Next Billion Users in India?

As Reliance Jio readies itself for the Jio Phone 2 flash sale, the biggest news for all Jio Phone users lies beyond hardware. WhatsApp on Jio Phone is that bit of news, and the latest update is that the app may not be available to all Jio Phone users from August 15, India’s Independence Day, as promised earlier. WhatsApp on Jio Phone will be rolling out to users in batches with some people getting it on August 15, Reliance Jio has claimed. That means there’s no definite Jio Phone 2 WhatsApp release date, but it should show up eventually. While you wait for the Jio Phone WhatsApp update, YouTube will be available on Jio Phone from August 15 and Facebook is already there. This means that this episode of Orbital, where the resident Jio expert Ravi Sharma joins host Pranay Parab, can focus on Jio Phone’s killer apps – WhatsApp and YouTube.

We begin the episode by talking about our experience with WhatsApp on Jio Phone, which was during the beta phase. The app had some way to go in terms of optimisation during the beta, but WhatsApp has every opportunity to fix teething issues before its final release on Jio Phone. The only bad news here is that all Jio Phone users won’t get WhatsApp on August 15. Then we talk about how Google and Facebook have been eyeing the next billion users in India and trying to get these people hooked to their platforms. We look at what this means for Indians and how it’ll impact the Internet in the country in the future. The next part of the podcast talks about the YouTube experience on the Jio Phone and we look at how it is different from that on smartphones. Here we explain why the things we take for granted may not work as expected on the Jio Phone, and why that is not necessarily a bad thing. Jio Phone 2 flash sale is on August 16, and we conclude the discussion with speculation about how the phone is different from the Jio Phone and how the WhatsApp and YouTube experience may differ on that device.

This episode of Orbital is brought to you by Goalwise.

That’s all for this week’s episode of Orbital, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.