Many of you probably use Slack for team chats at your place of business (we at AP do too). So, you'll be happy to hear there's a nice update rolling out to the Android app today. With v2.12.0, you'll get a better way to keep track of important channels, an in-app browser, and more.

Slack provided a cursory changelog in the Play Store, but included a link to a more detailed one. Yay.

Feature Additions

  • You star channels because they’re important — so it would follow that unreads in those conversations are more important. So you can now choose for a Starred Unreads section in Channel List in advanced preferences. Because it makes sense!
  • Also in preferences: In-App Browser support has now been added.
  • The more the merrier: You can now invite team members to ongoing Calls. (On paid teams, and up to fifteen. Let’s not get too merry)
  • Starting a new conversation is an even more beautiful life experience, given the redesigned headers you’ll now find topping them.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed: “But I read that thing you just told me to read!” You’re right! You did. So the issue where Channels were not being marked as read when coming into the app from a notification has now been fixed to reflect that.
  • Fixed: A crash that occurred when attempting to edit the @mention text when mentioning a team member.
  • Fixed: We’re continuing to polish connection and reconnection for Calls. It is better.
  • Fixed: You’ll now see a useful confirmation the feedback you sent via /feedback has been successfully fed back. “Slack: We’ve got your feedback!” is what it doesn’t say. But maybe should’ve.

If you have a lot of teams (or one with a lot of channels), starring some of the important ones can make it easier to keep track. Now, you can separate out the notifications from those starred channels. The starred unread option isn't immediately apparent, but it's down at the bottom of the settings page—unread display order. It toggles between combine unread and separate starred unreads.

Starting in this version, there's also a built-in browser. Specifically, it looks like a Chrome custom tab. This is also a setting; you can either have the app send you right to a full browser or use the custom tab. You can add people to ongoing Slack calls as well, but this is just for paid Slack accounts. Everything else in this update should work for free or paid.