Privacy is a big deal nowadays and a new app on the market is looking to propell it the right direction. Wiper looks like your typical messaging app; send and receive messages, use voice calls, and send media files, but look a little bit closer and you'll see a little button on the top right of your screen that says "Wipe." With the push of a button (you'll get a warning/prompt the first time you use it) entire conversations are completely erased from your phone.
Check out our recent review of Wiper here
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We got a chance to sit down with Manlio Carrelli, CEO & Co-Founder of Wiper and asked him some questions. Here's our Q&A:
1. For those unaware, what is Wiper?
MC: Wiper is a free private messaging and calling app. You can erase your Wiper messages not only from your phone, but also your friend's phone and our servers with one tap. And you can make secure calls with HD sound.
2. What inspired Wiper?
MC: We should be able to talk as freely online as we do offline. But messages, calls, even the entertainment we enjoy is tracked and stored indefinitely by companies, friends and strangers we interact with online. The conventional wisdom says privacy will continue to disappear as technology continues to advance. We believe the reverse should be true! So we built an app to make it happen. The key was to make it incredibly simple to use -- one tap to erase it all.
3. Who do you believe is your target audience for Wiper?
MC: We're getting a lot of passionate feedback from our amazing users, and many of them who write in tell us they are students and, to a little bit of our surprise, business people. These are groups that really put an emphasis on the ability to talk and think freely.
4. While a great feature, the addition of embedded Youtube videos seems almost out of place, what prompted that add on?
MC: We see privacy as one of the big issues of our time, and to make a dent in how folks think about and protect their privacy we need to make the tools that provide it easy to use and super fun. Otherwise folks won't adopt them. YouTube sharing is also private, in that there's no logs of what you personally watch and like all content in Wiper -- it's wipe-able!
5. When you "wipe" a conversation, it is wiped from the recipient's phone, as well as yours, but what about from Wiper's servers?
MC: When you tap "wipe," any trace that was on our servers is erased as well. Wiper is about erasing the conversation from our servers as well as your phone and your friend's phone. It's your data. You should have control over how long it exists.
6. The "wipe" feature is great, but what are you doing to protect against screenshots?
MC: There are a couple neat measures we take. Screenshots of Wiper are blocked on Android. iOS works a bit differently -- there we create an alert to the other person, when you screenshot the chat. We also don't include your name anywhere on the chat screen, making a screenshot less useful.
7. The HD calling feature sounds really good when talking to another party, but what kind of security does the HD calling have for users?
MC: Thanks. The HD sound on a Wiper call is much clearer and higher fidelity than you get on a regular phone call. Wiper's free calls are proving really popular with users who were previously stuck paying for international calls or using services with poor quality. And to your question, all Wiper calls use encryption for your security.
8. What about when sharing Youtube videos and playlists, can that data be wiped?
MC: Yep, the YouTube videos you share can be Wiped. You can also delete your playlists. In addition, when using Wiper, your YouTube viewing and browsing habits are private.
9. With Wiper can you only have a two person conversation, or can you have a group chat? If not, any plans for a group chat feature?
MC: Group chat is one of our most popular requests. We're working on it, and it's coming soon!
10. What is in store for Wiper in the near future? New updates, features, etc?
MC: In the near future, you'll see more settings to control Wiper notifications, so you can create the privacy set up perfect for you. We're also adding new ways to find and connect with your friends and, like I mentioned earlier, groups.
11. Thank you for your time, anything you would like to close with?
MC: Thanks for the opportunity to talk more in-depth about Wiper and our plans.
One thing I'd like to add is that we've been able to move very fast in a period of just a few months, debuting the "wipe-able" chat feature on iOS and Android, adding secure HD calling, and now YouTube sharing. We have a great founder and investor that's been instrumental to all of this. He's Michael Choupak, a serial Internet entrepreneur. He was the founder of Intermedia, the world's largest third-party provider of Microsoft email and a number of its own proprietary services for business voice communications. Michael also founded a very successful telecommunications company. It's been amazing having his perspective as we innovate messaging and voice capabilities. A few members of the team including myself are also from Intermedia.
This post was written by Josiah Motley, a tech blogger for KnowTechie. Follow him on Twitter.
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