Features I’d like to see on WhatsApp

Being one among a growing population of humanoids that wander our beautiful planet with eyes glued to the lovely virtual warmth of the phone’s/tablet’s pearly white screen, I have come to expect certain features from WhatsApp. With Facebook’s acquistion it was certain that many privacy threatening features would sooner or later come into play.

Facebook does understand our love for encroachment of the private space and so doesn’t disappoint us. While we have raised some voice in protest against those, there could be some features that could do some damage control. Heres my list of features that would be cool.

1. One chat interface for FBM and WA.

   Let’s be honest. Nobody likes the other person going offline on WA while they were talking. It’s usually to reply to some message on FBM (there’s barely any calls coming on our phones these days anyway so that rules out being offline due to a phone call). You might think that FBM has chat heads but i don’t like how it overlaps WA and pretty much everything else. So it would be nice if just the one app showed me messages from both. They could even mix and match cool features from both (I want those large fun smileys from FBM on WA). MZ, imagine how much you would be saving on infrastructure costs if it were just the one App. You could even name it WhatsFacebook! Just a thought.
   
2. Chat heads for WA!

   Please please please can we have chat heads for WA! I don’t want to have to interrupt my video on YouTube just to see a message on WA. To have chat heads would mean I wouldn’t have to do that anymore! That’d be so cool man! The possibilities are endless! Would be nice to have chat heads of preferred people or groups open at all times.

3. Mute option for individual chats.

   We all have at least a few people who do not understand the concept of ‘Leave me alone!’ Or ‘Stop stalking me!’ So instead of keying in my double encrypted security lock code and then seeing who messaged I could be spared the trouble of being notified regards messages from certain people. Granted you have a Block feature but not everyone is a stalker, sometimes it’s just someone very redundant  and boring to engage in an active conversation with, and with the new Blue ticks it becomes rather difficult for us well-meaning folks to avoid people. Just mute those people you’d rather avoid and voila! This brings me to the next item on my wish list.

4. Mute individuals on group chats.

   Like above, I’d like a certain people’s messages to not waste the battery so without much explanation let’s make this happen!

5. Selective Invisibility Cloak.

   I miss those days of Yahoo Messenger when you could just be visible online to a select few. I am sure MZ will face some copyright issues using that exact feature here but hey, we live in a much more tolerant world now. While we are on the subject of cool features to steal from Yahoo Messenger, let’s also get those audibles. Remember those?

6. Likes for profile pictures.

   Trying hard not to sound like a person wishing to create a smaller FB out of WA but some of us (not me) work really hard on getting a profile picture that is just right for WA and would like some feeble acknowledgement, or acceptance even, for our efforts. So all I am saying is that it would be nice if there was a little Like button somewhere there. Can we make this too happen (please)?

So there you go, that’s my big wish list from WA this winter. What do you think?