WhatsApp Turns Eight Today and Its Birthday Gift to Itself is Another Snapchat Dupe

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

As you can tell, Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, can’t seem to steer away from Snapchat’s identity. First, Facebook-owned Instagram introduced its own version of ‘Instagram Stories’. Just a few days ago, we also started to see ‘Facebook Stories’ on the Facebook mobile app.

And now, Facebook decides to turn WhatsApp from merely a chat messenger app to something bigger.

Yeah, everyone is saying how Facebook is just copying and adopting Snapchat’s main feature into all of its companies. The only difference with WhatsApp Status is that your status updates will be protected with end-to-end encryption, just like your WhatsApp messages, which means only you and the receiver can see your status.

How do I get WhatsApp Status?

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to update your app to get the new feature. Whether you’re an iOS or Android user, Status will appear as a new tab in your app.

How do I use it?

If you’re already familiar with using Snapchat and Instagram Stories, you shouldn’t find it hard to play around with WhatsApp Status because, well, it’s basically the same thing.

Updating your Status

Just like the other clones, you can take a photo or video by tapping on the camera icon. Add text captions, stickers, emojis, and drawings to customise your update before sending your Status by tapping the airplane icon. You can opt to send a generic update on ‘My Status’, send directly to a friend or to a group chat.

Videos you share can go as long as 45 seconds, compared to the 10 second videos on Snapchat and Instagram Stories. Perfect for those of us who have a lot to say and 10 seconds just ain’t enough! Besides capturing a photo or video, you can also send GIFs you’ve saved onto your phone.

Viewing your friend’s Status

Simply tap on the list of Status you see in the new tab to view your friends’ updates. You can also touch and hold the screen to pause a particular video Status and take a longer look at it. Tap to skip through the updates, swipe left to view the next Status and swipe up if you wish to send a message on the Status. If you’re no longer interested to see a particular person’s Status, simply swipe left on the person’s name and ‘Mute’ him/her.

Check who viewed your Status

You can see the number of views on your Status at the bottom of your screen to find out how many people are actually interested in your life and swipe up to see who’s been stalking you. Just kidding. Or not.

If someone you don’t like is watching your Status...

You can edit your privacy setting and control who gets to see your updates by tapping on the ‘Privacy’ button.