While some calling and messaging applications continue to stubbornly withhold app or feature support from their Windows Phone users despite the growing demand, other applications have embraced Microsoft’s OS with open arms, namely WhatsApp.
WeChat is one of these applications, having released a number of features built into the application that are either disabled by default or entirely separate downloads on other platforms (Drift Bottle, for instance). Some notable holiday features made their debut in the last couple of weeks simultaneously on Windows Phone, iOS, and Android.
While WeChat games and voice calls remain features notably missing from the platform — iOS and Android received voice calling back in October and November, respectively — voice messages are part of the app’s feature set and other features have been released with the latest update that keeps the Windows Phone version largely on par with versions found on the other two major mobile platforms.
WeChat stands out on the Windows Phone platform as one of the few with a Sticker Shop
One of these features is the ability to download “loads of new animated stickers” from the Sticker Shop. Users who download the latest update can also look forward to saving their favorite content clippings from chats or Moments as well as the ability to link email addresses for easy login and password retrieval.
While the latter two additions might seem minor, they add up to a bigger picture that represents a support for Windows Phone not found in app makers such as Tango or LINE. Tango has yet to even launch a Windows Phone 8 version of the app that builds on their outdated Windows Phone 7 version. Though LINE does allow the use of stickers downloaded via other platforms on Windows Phone, it does not yet have a native Sticker Shop, so promotional stickers from messages are unable to be obtained even though the messages themselves are received. Viber doesn’t have a native Sticker Shop yet either, but does include support for stickers as well and has plans to add the Sticker Shop to the platform in a future update.
The latest version of WeChat is now available in the Windows Phone Store. Notice any other features missing when compared to iOS and Android versions of WeChat or features that you’d like to see that might not be a part of the WeChat experience at all? Sound off in the comments!