New WhatsApp update: A case of plagiarism or a change for the better?

Many people (especially those belonging to the older generation) argue that emotions cannot be efficiently conveyed in a text message. To do away with this problem, with the transition from SMS to messaging over the internet, emoticons were introduced. They were supposed to bring in an emotional connect to our virtual conversations. That’s when a new problem popped up. ‘My brother is in the ICU and you are sending me a high five?’ ‘No dude, I was actually praying for God’s grace’. Whatsapp was not ready to give up. These days, thanks to the efforts of the development engineers at Whatsapp, all emoticons appear the same irrespective of the handset one is using.

Now Whatsapp wanted to achieve something more. With this came its new icons that were released yesterday and are currently visible in a beta version of its Android app. It is interesting to note that all the new icons are nearly identical to those created by Apple. While some people may take this as a welcome change there are others who argue that Whatsapp is just being the high school kid who copies his homework from his neighbor, makes a couple of changes to it and then calls that its own.

This difference of opinion highlights a growing problem for social media services. As long as there is Android manufacturer fragmentation, doing away with this cross-platform communication confusion will be a Herculean task.