KakaoTalk 4+

I hopped back on to KakaoTalk after hearing how WhatsApp was bought out from FB and how our data is no longer safe (meaning they’re tracking us and listening in on us). And since none of my American friends are using it, I needed to convince them to move from WhatsApp to this app. However, adding friends was a huuuuuge problem! Even if we were both in each other’s contact list (in our phone), KakaoTalk would give us an error message saying that we can’t add people who we’ve never talked to before, yet some stranger was able to message/ask my friend to “add” them. Eventually it worked bc I went through the “search” and typed in her number manually again. So that needs a fixing! People you have numbers for and they appear on your “friends” list but you can’t talk to them.

Another thing is the GIF, why is it not in the menu option?! You have to have it as part of your keyboard, it would basically take you out of the messaging part and then it doesn’t have a space for you to write a message with the GIF like WhatsApp does!

However, with all of that being said, the app is really cute! With lots of cute stickers (and a lot more if you feel like paying for them!)

I hardly ever leave reviews, but KakaoTalk is a special kind of bad. It is by far, the worst app I’ve ever used. Any media that is shared in chats will be stored locally on your phone, doesn’t matter if it’s been sent or received. For even moderate users of KakaoTalk, it’s not uncommon to see that KakaoTalk takes up gigs and gigs of space on your phone. For heavy users, KakaoTalk can take up all of the remaining storage space on your phone (we are talking 100+gb), and then give you messages saying the app can’t be used because it is out of storage in addition to your os getting cranky because other apps no longer have storage space to work with. KakaoTalk can use up more local storage space than you photo library containing tens of thousands of images, how crazy is that? There is an option to buy cloud storage from KakaoTalk to alleviate this problem, but unless you’re in Korea and have a Korean phone number, good luck trying to purchase it. Today, it was reported that the entire KakaoTalk network is down because of an incident at one data center. This is mind boggling. A service with such a large user base and one that powers other essential services like payments, has no redundancy and no resiliency to an issue in one (maybe their only?) data center. This is inexcusable and should be embarrassing for any “tech” company. Very difficult to trust KakaoTalk based on these very troubling issues with their app and service.

While I have nothing against the app, it takes too long for the chat to pop up in the actual app/chat room after I get the notification. For example, I would click on my notification and when it sends me to the chatroom it won't be there. I would have to leave and refresh the app entirely. So in a way, the app is a little buggy, despite it being the biggest app from the biggest company in Korea. Maybe it's because of a theme I downloaded online, but I feel like the customization of a very customizable app shouldn't be creating such clear issues. I would say it would be because of the Apple phone, but everyone in Korea uses Apple as well so what is exactly the problem? My friends and I have had miscommunications due to this bug(?) already, and we've only just moved the group chat to kakao. I hope it'll be fixed, else I would have to go back to using kakao just for my parents again.