Disa: The Unified Android Messaging Service That Works

Today our contacts are scattered across different social and messaging networks and it can be difficult to keep track of conversations you have across various services. Your friend might make dinner plans with you over SMS, ping you the address of the diner on Facebook, and then give you his location update on WhatsApp. What I’m trying to say is, if you ever need to go back and connect the dots between these conversations, you will have to open individual apps and check each message manually. What a headache.

We have seen quite a few apps like Snowball and C-Notice, which unify the notification updates from these apps. But to reply to the conversations, one had to open the individual app. Now with Disa, a unified messenger for Android, things are going to change.

The app integrates different messaging services under a single roof enabling you to read and respond to them directly via Disa. For now, text messaging, Facebook and WhatsApp are supported, with more services like Hike and Line to be added soon.

Disa – Unifying Messaging Services

Once you install Disa, it will ask you to activate it as a default messaging service. Facebook and WhatsApp are downloaded as additional plugins and account configuration is needed before Disa can start the services. When you configure WhatsApp with Disa, the default WhatsApp will stop working because of a signature verification error.

Note: You will not see any of the WhatsApp groups on Disa unless someone messages in the group. Only after you receive a notification your WhatsApp group will be visible to you.

To compose a new message, tap the plus icon from the sidebar and select the messaging service. Once you have multiple conversations from a contact on different services, the app will give you the option to merge them as a unified contact. Long tap and select the conversations and tap the merge button you see at the bottom of the screen. Select the default service you would like to use, like WhatsApp or text message.

That’s all – every message from that particular contact, whether it’s from FB or WhatsApp, will be shown in a single message thread. While sending messages, you can tap on the icon next to the compose window and change the carrier. You can view media and even attach files depending upon the service you select while sending the message.

Cool Tip: You can color code different services from the service settings to easily distinguish between Facebook, WhatsApp, and text messaging.

In the settings, you can change various app configurations like Notifications, Emojis, Keyboards, etc. One great thing about using Disa is that it only needs one snooze button to mute all the messaging services for a while.

Conclusion

Disa was in a closed Alpha state for years and it was recently released as a public beta on the Play Store. I have high hopes for the app and would love to see the developers add more services while keeping the existing ones up and running. If you use WhatsApp, texting and Facebook Messenger often, give Disa a try right away and check out the awesomeness it brings.