What’s Next for WhatsApp?
If your goal is to greatly reduce(or eliminate) your SMS texting bill, you can go a long way toward that goal with WhatsApp. The recently introduced VoIP features can even trim your need for a voice plan, and the Web messenger makes it even easier to stay in touch with your friends. And you’ll almost certainly be pleasantly surprised at the number of friends you already have on the service. If you find yourself chatting with friends overseas, this app might be a prerequisite.
But despite the new features and improved security, I’m a bit disappointed in WhatsApp. It has remained strangely static in the face of growing competition. Its new features feel like half-measures, and its core features—free texting without a text plan, sending sound clips and pictures—have already been adopted by first-party providers like Apple with Messages, Google with Hangouts, and Skype for Windows Phone. It’s worth nothing that those services also offer video chat, unlike WhatsApp. Even Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, seems to have iterated faster and more impressively with its Messenger service. And now Twitter has introduced private group chats, too.
Considering all these changes, I wonder if there is still a real advantage to WhatsApp over any of these other services. Those first-party solutions are already available on your phone, or you could consider Viber, our Editors’ Choice for Android voice and messaging apps.