Staff Reporter

KARACHI:  BiP’s mother company Turkcell keeps adding new features to BiP, a global life and communication platform home-grown in Turkey. The company recently launched the ‘status’ feature for its app. Now, users can instantly share their videos and photos and add text to images. Other users can also and view them and comment on them. The new feature allows BiP users to share their videos or photos, and their fresh or previously archived an image or a video in gallery. They can also see who has viewed their ‘status’. Those who share their status can see others’ status as well (from their contact list). They can also enter their chat window and reply to other people’s statuses.

The company’s Executive Vice President of Digital Services and Solutions, AtaçTansuğ, stresses that Turkcell always listens its customers what they want and need and then homes in products and services accordingly. He at one point added: “We’re constantly updating and improving BiP – and rely on user feedback to do so. For example, our users have been demanding a ‘status’ feature for a long time, so we added one. In addition, we fine-tune all of our products and services per the latest requirements in both safety and privacy. We are investing in new security features at the moment; we aim to introduce end-to-end security by the end of this year.”

Turkcell stores BiP users’ data at special high-security data centres across Turkey. BiP itself features an HD voice and group video call conferencing system (max. ten people) and an HD photo sharing. Likewise, its ‘instant translation’ feature allows you to chat in up to 106 different languages. BiP also contains an Emergency Button that allows users to share where they are and if they are effected  during a natural disaster. Everyone – regardless of the operator – can use BiP anywhere they are. BiP’s ‘group import feature allows users to transfer groups and chat histories quickly and easily from the previous messaging app over to BiP.