WhatsApp starts testing long-awaited scheduled messages on iPhone

After years of waiting, WhatsApp is finally making one of its most-requested messaging features available to select iPhone beta testers. Here are the details.

Scheduled messages are almost here

While Meta doesn’t generally break down active user figures by platform, Mark Zuckerberg said in April last year that WhatsApp had more than 3 billion monthly active users worldwide.

Ironically, despite being used by more than a third of the world’s population, WhatsApp still lacks some features competing platforms have offered for years. Case in point: the ability to schedule messages.

Earlier this year, WABetaInfo reported that code references in WhatsApp’s beta suggested the company was working on a message scheduling feature, although it wasn’t available for testing at the time.

Now, according to the site, the feature is finally rolling out to select iOS beta testers, less than two weeks after making its debut on Android beta.

Here’s how the feature works, per WABetaInfo‘s report:

Users can schedule a message from the chat interface. After typing the message into the chat composer, they need to tap and hold the send button. WhatsApp opens the schedule message screen with a date and time picker. Users can scroll through the page and tap the green button at the bottom of the screen to confirm. The button shows the exact delivery time before users schedule the message. After scheduling a message, WhatsApp shows a confirmation in the chat, but it is only visible to the user who scheduled it.

WABetaInfo notes that messages can be scheduled as little as 10 minutes in advance or as far as two weeks in advance, and that scheduled messages appear in a dedicated section within the chat info screen or the group info screen for group chats.

Interestingly, in group chats, scheduled messages are only delivered to users who were already members when the message was scheduled. Anyone who joins the group afterward won’t receive it, even if they join before the message is sent.

The site also says that in addition to scheduling text messages, users can schedule messages containing photos, videos, and links. One current limitation, however, is that users cannot schedule multiple photos or videos at once, meaning each media item must be scheduled separately.

As is often the case with beta features, scheduled messages are only available to select testers, with no way to enable the feature manually. There’s also no word on when it will launch publicly, although with testing now underway on both iOS and Android, a wider rollout could be coming sooner rather than later.

To read WABetaInfo’s full report, follow this link.

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