ISLAMABAD – WhatsApp is testing out a new feature that will allow users tosend message capable of self-destructing after a certain period of time.This new feature could be especially useful to people who want to sendconfidential or sensitive messages and does not want the recipient to havepermanent access to them.
Although this can be quite a useful feature to have, it is nothing new. Ithas been used on various messaging apps such as Telegram, which even letsyou have entire chats that can be deleted immediately or deleteautomatically after a set time.
Emailing clients have this feature as well. For example, the confidentialmode in Gmail, which not only lets users send emails with an expiry timebut also prevents them from doing other things like copying the contents ofthe email, forwarding it and downloading it.
Having said that, nowhere will this feature come into more use than onWhatsApp, due to the sheer number of people that use it on a daily basis.According to reports from WABetaInfo, however, there is still some timebefore this feature will be rolled out to the general public. It is stillin beta form, and its implementation is still crude at this stage.
The feature is only supported in group chats for now, and the user canonly choose between self-destruct times of 5 seconds or an hour, with nooptions in between. The user must also commit to having all their messagesself destruct in that chat after the set time. Also, it is currently onlybeing developed for the Android app, but expect an iOS version not longafter.
Read Top Stories
There’s no saying when this feature will actually be available on WhatsApp,and to what extent it will be useful. But any step towards a more privatechatting experience, especially on the most popular messaging platform inthe world, must be appreciated.
*Via:* *The Verge*
*Source:* *WABetaInfo*
