Viber is still playing catch-up with more popular messaging apps and every couple of weeks it adds several features that have been available on other messengers for a while. That's still a good thing though, in my opinion, since users who prefer Viber have the same handy and interesting options than those who are on Telegram or WhatsApp.

In the latest update to Viber 7.7.0, the app added a couple of useful new options for groups. Admins can now pin messages to the top, allowing users a quick way to see important messages. Pinned messages show up in a banner at the top of the conversation and can only be removed or replaced by admins.

Pinned messages.

Another new feature for groups are replies. They work like expected: long-tap a message in the group and you can select reply to have the original message and the reply you type sent together. That way others know when you've specifically answered them about something and no one gets confused if someone pops up and starts replying to older messages randomly. You can see how replies work in the image at the top of this post.

And finally Viber is also introducing broadcast lists and messages. This is handy when you don't want to create a group, but want to send the same message to lots of people in one go. One of the drug dealers (read: pharmacy medicine suppliers) I work with uses broadcasts on WhatsApp to inform all their clients that an out-of-stock medicine is back available. It's a handy feature and it's great to see it come to Viber.

Broadcast lists.

You can see all these features in Viber 7.7.0 which should already be live in the Play Store for everyone. It's also available on APK Mirror if you prefer to sideload it.

Source: Viber