I would have thought the whole point of a web client was so that people who don't have a supported phone can get in on the fun. If I have to have WA on my phone to authenticate a web client then said client is just the useless toy described in the article.

I confess, I've never used it and don't want to pass judgment without actually checking it out but if what the article describes is true than, yeah, they screwed this one up big time.