If you want to be reductionist, everything is a feature. But if an app is missing something so basic as to impact usability, I might consider it a bug. It's a matter of opinion where the line is, of course.
Uncontroversial example: a calculator app that doesn't have a divide key. Technically, yes, it's a separate feature from the multiply key, but it's so basic, so expected, that its absence is a bug.
From the above list, I consider "No easy way to do and restore backups on Android and impossible to do backups on their PC client" a bug, or at least a frustrating omission by design.
More like missing basic features. I never said all are bugs, I said some are bugs and that all these things exist and work on the other alternatives like WhatsApp or Telegram
No, that's not just my criteria, but Signal's own, when they entered the market as an alternatives to WhatsApp.
If you climb in the ring with Ali, then you'd better be able to box.
And it's also the criteria of millions of other users who have not switched to Signal because of the bugs, quirks, and lack of basic features for a modern messaging app.
Just being able to send encrypted ASCII characters to someone is not enough to make a good messaging app these days.
No, they are your personal criteria. Your “gripes” as you said.
> And it's also the criteria of millions of other users who have not switched to Signal because of the bugs, quirks, and lack of basic features for a modern messaging app.
You have absolutely no knowledge that this is why people haven’t switched, indeed it’s highly unlikely that it would have been as successful as it has if this were the case. People move to Signal because they distrust Facebook and telegram.
The more logical explanation is simply network effects and inertia. Occam’s razor.
The rest are all feature requests.
That said, it’s interesting to see what people think are basic requirement for a messaging app these days.