14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook-owned WhatsApp is working on a new feature that would make the transition from iPhone to Android and the other way around as seamless as possible.
WhatsApp wants to provide users with a chat history migration tool that would be offered in addition to the multi-device support that the company is already working on.
More specifically, users would be able to move their chat history from one device to another, even when not running the same operating system.
Right now, if you want to migrate your chat history from one iPhone to another, all you have to do is to create a backup stored in the cloud and then restore it on a new device. The same thing for Android devices, where the backup system works with Google Drive.
But in the future, WhatsApp wants users to be able to connect to WhatsApp with the same account on multiple devices, pretty much just like Telegram already does. So in theory, if you use WhatsApp on an iPhone and on an Android device, the service needs to be able to have the same chat history on both devices, in which case a migration tool needs to be offered.
Feature still in its early days
According to WABetaInfo, this feature is already in the works, but for the time being, there’s no ETA as to when it could get the go-ahead.
Because it’s pretty clear this is a major new feature for WhatsApp and the company needs to make sure everything is working exactly as anticipated. And needless to say, it requires a ton of work, especially because some features, such as the migration tool, need to be written from scratch on both iPhone and Android.
More information on the progress of this feature is likely to make the headlines in the coming months.