They’ve been working on a cloud backup feature, which might enable this.

Session eliminated perfect forward secrecy. Big no for those who take encryption seriously.

I get it when I try to change view quickly after opening the app

They do not at this time intend to drop the phone number requirement, as they see it as an anti-spam measure. Meredith Whittaker has said as much. Phone number privacy is a project independent of requiring phone number at signup, and it just prevents other users from seeing your number.

Usernames have not been released yet. When they are released, phone number will still be required for registration, but you will be able to hide it from other people on Signal.

Please god stay

Mate, you haven’t even been to America in years because of the outstanding warrant. How would you know?