WhatsApp: What’s there, what’s missing, what’s next

WhatsApp, an instant messaging service for smartphones, was founded in 2009 by two former Yahoo employees. The product was built under a subscription business model and only works on a smartphone with a valid and working SIM card. The IM service was well known then, and only performed messaging tasks in the initial stages. The service spread from a few users to 250,000 users in just a few months of development. Initially, the service was free, but the founders decided to make it a paid service to keep it from growing too fast as the primary activation and verification service involved an SMS to be sent over to the phone, which was turning out to be expensive. By early 2013, the service became famous and swelled to a whopping 200 million active users, which doubled by the end of the year. Today, there are more than 800 million active users worldwide. WhatsApp Inc was later acquired by Facebook in February 2014.

WhatsApp went on from casual instant messaging to sharing of photos and videos. Users could place their status message for others. Security features were later added with options for the user to go in hidden mode, not allowing his contacts to know when he is online or active. Group chats were enabled and other security features such as blocking and spam protection were also added. Users could send messages and get notifications about it being received by the recipient. Later, WhatsApp enabled the user to also find out if the recipient has read the message, with blue ticks showing up.

Various other messaging applications, such as Skype, Hangouts, Facebook messenger, and a few others, featured voice and video. WhatsApp was then testing voice over data for the messenger service to be released to users later. But as the news leaked out about WhatsApp working on voice calling, users worldwide were hunting for the feature to be enabled. Hackers and spammers took advantage of this situation to leech on ignorant users and make some dough. Hoax messages were spreading around which were luring users to click on a link to get the voice mode activated. In the bargain, users were sent to a phishing website, which forced them to spread the spam messages to more people and click on various ad-heavy websites and promotions. Some even reported being attacked by Trojan websites.

Also read: 'Try WhatsApp Calling': Don't click on this message!

WhatsApp later enabled all users to make voice calls over the internet using wireless or mobile data as a new mode of communication. Presently, users can send photos, videos, audio, location and contacts via WhatsApp. Spam protection has recently been added to avoid unknown users from sending you messages.

However, we find that WhatsApp needs to still develop further and add more features to the existing chat app. We have had numerous discussions on the topic where WhatsApp has ignored certain core elements that are actually important. These are listed below, apart from casual features, which could also be added and make the application healthier and powerful.

• There is no option to mute a single user. Groups can be muted though.
• There is no option to save media files to another location. Smartphones with lower internal storage presently suffer. It would have been great if there was an option to automatically save images and videos to an external storage or a desired location.
• There are no proper backup options. Google backup was added, but later removed. Presently, you can backup the chats, but on the internal storage only. Email backup is available.
• Options like backing up to Dropbox, Google Drive or network storage could have additionally benefitted users.
• There is no option for transferring your account and chats to a new smartphone in one go. Users have to manually transfer the entire data to the other phone and reinstall WhatsApp.
• WhatsApp is web enabled, but still needs to be used on a desktop PC or laptop only, with certain browsers. Users cannot use the feature on a tablet or iPad browser as yet.
• WhatsApp does not support a dual-SIM option. Users need to take help of third-party applications to get around the issue.
• Though you can refuse to take the message, there is no mode where you can place it on ‘Do not disturb’ mode.
• There is no option to set a personalized notification tone for each specific user or group.
• The ‘search’ and ‘add user’ buttons are placed too closer to each other.
• The option to make regular calls has been removed. Users are forced to make voice calls via WhatsApp.
• There is no feature to know if a user has blocked you out. A missing status, last seen time stamp and DP are the only indications.
• Broadcasting a message needs you to input the names. It would have been convenient if there was a list with a tick mark option to add the users.
• No option to send regular files apart from videos and photos.
• No option to compress larger videos before sending.
• No automatic spam detection enabled. Known spamming numbers should be automatically barred.
• No option to report spammers so that they can be avoided by other users too (like Truecaller)
• Backup chats needs to be done manually. They are designed to be backed up automatically at 4:00 pm. User has no option to set a desired time.
• No option for private and sensitive chats. Chats cannot be hidden or password protected.
• No option for password protection on the entire app. Users need to rely on a third-party app for locking the WhatsApp messenger.
• No option to temporarily disable WhatsApp service for a set period so that a user cannot be disturbed from incoming messages.
• No option to manage the WhatsApp account online.
• No option to delete WhatsApp accounts when a mobile number is discontinued.
• When set with privacy options such as disabling blue ticks and last seen status, user still shows up online when he is active on WhatsApp.
• Multiple messages don’t club up as a single notification. Multiple messages pour in when you enable data or Wi-Fi.
• No option to add a contact by number. You have to enter the names.
• You cannot search for a message across the entire app.
• Group chats are not threaded.
• You cannot know if a particular user has read the message on a group. At least the Admin should have it shown up in his list.
• One cannot share GIF files either.
• No option for adding an email address to link your account for security or verification purposes.
• No option to disable popup notifications even though groups are muted.
• If WhatsApp Web works on a desktop or laptop, then why should it still use the internet connection via the phone and not the PC? What if you ran out of battery on your phone?
• If you are travelling to a place where there is no internet or I am travelling abroad and the internet is expensive, you should have the option to transfer WhatsApp messages to an email address. In short, auto-forward all chats to an email account.
• You cannot share a route on a map, but only your location.
• Insufficient stickers and smileys.
• WhatsApp Web is also incomplete—you cannot control anything. You cannot change your name, status, enable blocking or create groups.
• When WhatsApp has an update, no changelog or list about added features and resolved issues are mentioned.
• There should have been an option to recall (undo) a message if it has not already seen. Accidental messages on wrong numbers/groups could be avoided.
• The voice calling button should confirm the calling before you make the call. One tap and the calls are already made.
• When the internal storage is full or you run out of sufficient space, WhatsApp does not allow you to download any new photo or video. It could give you an option to save it to the external folder or delete some older useless media files.
• No option to delete media files from the app. If you delete the conversation or clear the chats, the media files are still taking up curcial space.
• No option to delete old backups. They take up crucial internal storage space.
• When you forward a video, they are additionally copied to the sent folder, wasting internal storage space.
• No option for file size download limit. Friends and spammers can send large videos which eats up into the recipient’s data costs.
• No option for marking certain chats as important or favorites.
• No option to automatically send a message to a sender if you don’t want to be disturbed when he tries sending you a message. You are forcefully receiving the message even if you don’t want to receive it, even if he is a spammer.

We are sure there may be many more such features that you as users would like to see on the popular chat platform. You can list them down in the comments so that we can share it with others too. There would be some of the above features that are in test and could be released soon, but we are yet to know of any progress.

WhatsApp is presently rumoured to be working enabling video chats. However, spammers are now on the same case with hoax messages, similar to the last time with voice activation. So beware about the hoax messages that are doing its rounds about video calling. Avoid such messages and do not forward it too.

Also read: Warning! Hoax WhatsApp Video calling invitation is prowling again