Facebook's strategy lately seems to be to offer the same features (and copy Snapchat) on all its services and let users just choose where they want to use this or that option. Instagram got Stories, WhatsApp got ephemeral statuses, Facebook Messenger got that weird Day thing... none of it makes sense to me because I like to use each app for a specific purpose and not confuse myself with overlapping options, but what do I know?! In that vein, the latest addition to WhatsApp seems to be image filters.

The feature showed up on beta version 2.17.297 but was quickly removed with a follow-up version 2.17.298. I didn't even have time to try it as by the time I was awake, my phone had jumped to the latest release. But we have a couple of screenshots from our tipster to demo how it's all going to look like.

The filters will be available from a swipe up gesture when you're editing an image before you send it. There are only a few now: Pop, B&W, Cool, Chrome, and Film, so it's not like this will replace your photo editor of choice. And given how WhatsApp compresses images beyond recognition, I'm not sure why you'd even bother with filters, but again, what do I know. WhatsApp clearly thinks this will be popular.

If you want to try out the filters for yourself, you'll need to get v2.17.297 beta from APK Mirror and stop the app from auto-updating on the Play Store. Or you can let it upgrade, either because you don't care about filters or because they're likely to come back in a future version.

Thanks: Moshe E