Feature Spotlight: Direct Messaging
We're thrilled to announce a major upgrade to our messaging system, rebuilding it from the ground up for a faster, safer, and more dynamic experience. This lays the foundation for exciting new features arriving in the coming months. Direct messaging will become available when installing the latest version of the nenos app this February.
The new system will let you direct message your mutuals in real time. Start a conversation, or pick up where you left off, with your mutual from their profile. Or, get right into all your conversations from the now feed. Once you update the app, you'll start to get notifications for conversations in which you're participating. Open a notification to jump directly into the conversation and reply to your friend.
We've built our own in-house messaging system as part of a larger effort to ensure that everyone is safe on nenos. This was a significant technical hurdle that has taken a great deal of time to get right. We are specifically proud of live-updating conversations. This may sound like table-stakes for a messaging app (and it is), but we're proud to have achieved this entirely using SwiftUI, Combine, and Swift Concurrency. We'll have more technical details on how we did this in an upcoming engineering post.
Because we are no longer using a third-party messaging service, we've been able to provide you with additional tools to protect yourself. We know that conversations aren't always consensual, and even when they are, they can sometimes become hostile. We've integrated messaging with our blocking features and our spam and abuse detection systems. You can leave a conversation at any time, and blocked creators won't be able to message you. Beyond that, we're also very excited to announce that messaging will be integrated with Apple's Sensitive Content Analysis system.
Creators who opt-in to Sensitive Content Detection on their iPhone (as well as minors who have been enrolled by their parent or guardian) will automatically have sensitive content obscured in messages. Creators over the age of 18 who receive a sensitive message will need to confirm that they'd like to view it before its displayed. Creators under the age of 18 will also need to confirm they'd like to view sensitive messages, but will be offered support resources and asked to confirm twice before viewing. Learn more about Sensitive Content Warnings here.
We are excited to share that future updates to direct messaging include support for GIFs, images, reactions, group chats, and post sharing in the coming weeks and months. This is our initial take at messaging, and it will only get better from here. We're excited to give you the tools to connect with people you care about, and to continue making these tools better and better.
Thank you to our Patrons who generously support our mission. Join us on Patreon today.
Heydi Barro
Manuel Calabrese
