It seems so simple, and yet it’s something WhatsApp has gone without for since it was switched on nearly 20 years ago.
When 2029 pops up, WhatsApp will celebrate its 20th anniversary, but this year at its 17th year operating, the massively used messaging software found on iOS, Android, Mac, and Windows gains a new feature many have been asking for: the ability to log in without a phone number.
Since it was created, your phone number was a requirement and a way for the WhatsApp service to link you to the network. It was just part and parcel of how WhatsApp worked.
But not everyone wants to share their phone number, and not everyone has a phone number to be shared. If you needed to set up WhatsApp for family members in a group on an iPad and you didn’t specifically have a phone number, WhatsApp probably wasn’t your app of choice. You needed a number.
This year, that changes. Meta is giving current users a chance to claim their username ahead of rollout of the feature in the coming months. It’ll be like a handle on any other platform, but probably more closely connects with the idea of a nickname on Instagram, given it relies on the idea. WhatsApp’s usernames don’t actually need to be connected to anything else, and may be a chance to start fresh.
For family members without a phone number, it also means WhatsApp will begin to work more like just about any (and every) social network in that it’s username-connected, rather than phone-connected. Family trips where everyone talks over a WhatsApp group suddenly will be able to connect to family members where WiFi is the only option, it seems.
There’s no official launch date for the usernames on WhatsApp, though the username claim is something current WhatsApp subscribers can do. Interestingly, if you opt for a name that someone already has on their Facebook or Instagram, you may find it’s unavailable until they claim it for themselves.
We’re not quite sure why that would be the case beyond giving current subscribers a sense of first dibs, but with over three billion WhatsApp users around the world, you may want to get in early to get the username you really want, and can do so inside the accounts screen under settings.
