As popular and as widely used as WhatsApp is, there are some features that, I think, could enhance the experience. During the lockdown, there are 3 features that I have needed from WhatsApp that aren’t yet available.
Editing sent messages
Typos are a common feature on messaging platforms. Beyond typos, there are times when a message is conveyed incorrectly or incoherently. Giving users the ability to edit messages is I think a important tool.
This feature is already available on Telegram. WhatsApp did however introduced message editing in the beta program in 2017 but the feature was abandoned.
Pinned messages
This is more for group chats than for one-on-one messages. With companies working remotely either partially or completely. WhatsApp group chats in Zimbabwe are the easiest way to bring people together because a good number of people already use it.
In those workgroups, there is a lot of information that comes and goes. Important information can sometimes be lost in the torrent of messages. Giving users the ability to pin messages in groups, I think, keeps important information like announcements and deadlines in clear view.
Pinned messages won’t only have to be for workgroups. I can also see them being used in family, trading, neighbourhood, social groups and more. There will, however, have to be a way to make pinned messages unobtrusive because we all don’t have the same screen real estate. One way to do this could be to have a minimised version of the message at the top (as the pinned message). When someone wants to access it they can just tap on it and then have it pop out and the full message displayed.
Another problem concerns the number of messages that can be pinned. This I think could work in the same way that WhatsApp’s pinned chats work. There can be 3 pinned messages at a time and they could also even expire in the same way that statuses do.
Message scheduling
I think this feature is could be endlessly helpful to keep ahead of things. Sending ZOOM meeting invites ahead of time is something that has increasingly become important. If a meeting is starting at three in the afternoon the following day, for example, a user can schedule the message to be sent an hour in advance of the meeting. Scheduling messages could also be useful for those (myself included) who often forget to send birthday and other annual messages.
These are the 3 features that I think would make WhatsApp even better. That being said I am sure that there those among you who have some other features that you think would improve the WhatsApp experience. If so let me know the comments.
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4 comments
An option to switch on or off the app, switching off or on calls would also be great updates
The app has served me well over the years.
However, I will be more pleased if an audio file downloads and plays at the same time much like videos do; ie play and buffering at the same time; to avoid a situation of having complete download of a file you will discover you don’t like. This will enable sampling audios and I decide whether to continue with download or not.
1. Ability to set different names (the one displayed after phone number) in the different groups to which one is a member.
2. Ability to filter group messages by a particular member’s phone number.
Whatsapp should allow admin the ability to delete message in the group chat.