Hike... Really!!!

In cricket, it was felt that after Sachin Tendulkar, his clone will come and Sehwag fulfilled everybody's wish. So in mobile apps after whatsapp’s success it was almost inevitable that something alike should come in market. So I was not surprised when I received a SMS inviting me to join 'Hike' from one of my friends. So I decided to join Hike.


So here I am on gadgetdost to find out what is it that makes them feel that they can compete with Whatsapp. They have everything that whatsapp has; from sending chat messages to DP (Display or Profile pic).  You can send image, movie, location or contact info to your buddy using Hike. You cannot create groups in Hike but you still can send message to a group of people by selecting multiple recipients while sending any message.

So till now there is no difference between whatsapp and Hike. So what’s it that makes Hike different from Whatsapp. You can send chat message as an SMS to a person who doesn’t have Hike on his phone or who doesn't have an internet connection active on his phone. You can add non Hike contact in group while sending broadcast message. Non Hike contacts will receive that as SMS on his / her phone. I think this is a great feature that is not present in Whatsapp. So you must be wondering who will pay for this SMS... right? You get 100 SMSes free every month. They also have unique rewards scheme. You can invite your friends to join Hike by SMS and if they join within fair days from your invitation then you get an additional 50 SMSes and talk time of Rs. 20. SMS and Reward facility is only restricted to India. Even sending chat message as SMS is available only in India. The look and feel of Hike is eye smoothing and clean. User interface is very easy to use. The only problem that they will face is that people are already on whatsapp and changing them from whatsapp will be a real challenge. The innovative scheme of SMS and talk time may attract Indian users though.

For my techie friends, it is a cross platform app. You can install it on iOS, Android, Windows or Symbian mobile OS. That means you can have it on any phone which qualifies under smart phone category. It is a free app unlike Whatsapp, which is paid on some of the mobile OS. This app is developed by a company called Bharati Softbank, join venture of Bharti Telecom and India and Softbank Telecom Japan.

Gadgetdost Verdict:
It is a nice, simple and instant messenger with a great feature of sending SMS from same screen. It is great idea to shift to Hike along with your friends. Let me know your mobile numbers beforehand so that I can send you an invitation and I can get SMS and talk time reward’s ;)