WhatsApp is working on a SnapChat-inspired new feature that will let you set a timer on your texts. So, like Tom Cruise’s boss in the Mission Impossible franchise, you can send messages that will self-destruct after a certain time has passed.
The Facebook-owned team looks set to brand the feature “Disappearing Messages,” which isn’t the most thrilling branding, but does the job.
The arrival of Disappearing Messages was uncovered by @WABetaInfo, which trawls through the latest beta software releases from WhatsApp to sniff out clues about forthcoming features and design tweaks coming to the app. According to clues found in the latest WhatsApp beta, the feature will be available in group chats.
It seems likely the feature will also be included in one-to-one chats as well, since WhatsApp does not currently offer any messaging tricks in its group chats that aren’t also available in its individual chats.
Based on the screenshot shared by @WABetaInfo, group chats will be able to set a blanket rule about Disappearing Messages – so that every text message, photo, video, or audio clip shared in a chat will delete itself after 5 seconds, or 1 hour.
This seems like a bit of an all-or-nothing approach. Whether you’ll be able to send a single text message to disappear after a certain amount of time is unclear. However, since WhatsApp already allows you to remove single text messages, photos, videos, audio files, and more – then this might be doubling up on functionality.
SnapChat gained huge traction for its ephemeral messaging system, which removes every photo, video, text message after a recipient has read it. To prevent people from being able to screenshot anything the sender might’ve wanted to keep as a limited time only offer, the messaging app included a warning when the other person in your chat screenshots the messages. It’s unclear whether WhatsApp is working on a similar warning.
Clearly, WhatsApp is still working hard on the feature. It has not announced plans to offer Disappearing Messages, so it might be a while before we see the finalised feature roll-out.
In that time, we’d expect the chat app to offer more options than just 5 seconds, or 1 hour. Surely, a 24 hour time-out on messages would make sense?
Of course, it’s also possible the feature never materialises.
The @WABetaInfo team have previously unearthed features in testing that never made it into a worldwide release – like the ability to loop your video clips before you send them in chats – so take these latest screenshots with a healthy pinch of salt. After all, this might end-up on the cutting room floor at Facebook HQ.
WhatsApp recently confirmed plans to drop support for iOS 8 early next year, blocking users with older handsets from accessing the chat app. If your iPhone isn’t able to make the jump to iOS 9, you might need to cough-up for a newer smartphone model, or risk missing out on some important group chat texts, including some hilarious disappearing messages.
Source: Read Full Article