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WhatsApp is working on a fresh redesign for its call screen UI
Brace for floating bars and new button layouts
WhatsApp gives users every modern communication tool imaginable, including group chats, broadcast messaging through channels, topical group interactions with communities, and voice and video calling, all for free. These features make it one of our favorite instant messaging apps on Android, just like Telegram, Signal, and Discord. We have a few complaints about Meta’s management of the app, and UI design updates are high up on that list. It appears WhatsApp is taking note and finally refreshing the design, this time for the call screen.
WhatsApp’s working on a way to quickly call your favorite contacts
Beta testers are able to pin contacts in the Calls tab
March has been an eventful month for WhatsApp, reiterating why it is one of our favorite encrypted messaging apps around. Although the stable channel didn’t see many changes, the beta testers noticed several changes such as voice transcription for voice notes and biometric authentication for app lock. However, the biggest changes most users would notice is the support for pinning more conversations and messages. Now, that support is extending into the Calls tab where it hasn’t existed before.
WhatsApp wants to be your shared calendar for groups
Meta is also working on adding a new default media quality option to WhatsApp
In October 2023, WhatsApp was spotted working on a new Event scheduling feature for group chats. This feature would allow users in a group to plan and organize events easily by adding the location, time, and date instead of having to coordinate over messages. More details about the feature have now popped up online, detailing how it would work.
WhatsApp could make it easier to post text-based status updates
Text, Video, and Photo options could live together
The world of WhatsApp betas is filled with surprises, with testers getting a preview of under-development features that may or may not make it to the stable version of the app. Similarly, the Meta-owned chat app was recently working on letting users share lengthier videos through status updates. WhatsApp is now working on another status-related improvement, with a redesign of the preview/editor page appearing in the app's latest beta for Android.
Picking a messaging app can be challenging, and unless you patronize one app, you’ll find yourself hopping between the popular ones to stay connected. WhatsApp is in the thick of it, thanks to its massive user base, and developers are hard at work to ensure the app isn’t left in the dust by the likes of Telegram and Signal. That’s perhaps why March was all about beta testing everything from UI changes to security enhancements, so here’s a quick look at what changed this month.
Latest WhatsApp beta lets you use Meta AI straight from the search bar
Soon, you may not have to manually open a chat with Meta AI each time
AI is making its mark in many positive ways across the globe. You can now discover AI tools for almost any task, with AI being integrated into practically every app and service. Meta, for its part, has been embedding AI into its platforms. If you're in the US, you can give it a whirl on WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram. To engage with Meta AI, simply start a new message and choose "Create an AI chat" on any of Meta's platforms. In the future, Meta might let you input your questions directly into the search bar.
WhatsApp could soon get Instagram's AI photo editing tools
Backdrop, Restyle, and Expand options have appeared
WhatsApp developers are always busy improving existing functionality or, as we saw recently, bringing back features that we thought were gone for good. We've known about Meta's plans to bring AI-generated stickers to the app since August last year, while a dedicated AI chatbot for the app has also appeared in beta releases so far. The latest WhatsApp beta for Android now contains a couple of AI-powered image editing tools that were first teased by Meta in September.
Here's your first look at WhatsApp's upcoming integration for rival apps
Meta’s answer to the EU calling WhatsApp a gatekeeper
WhatsApp is arguably one of the most popular encrypted instant messaging apps on Android, often locking horns with other popular services like Telegram and Signal. However, such popularity attracted regulator attention in the EU, where the European Commission deemed the app a gatekeeper as defined in the Digital Markets Act. To safeguard its plans for continued operations in the market, Meta is giving WhatsApp interoperability with other apps and we now have our first look at the implementation ahead of its official release.
WhatsApp wants to protect your link previews from prying eyes
You could soon have the option to toggle previews on and off
As one of the best encrypted instant messaging apps on the Play Store, WhatsApp has amassed billions of users who send millions of messages on the app every day. Like most of its rivals, WhatsApp allows sending texts, images, links, videos, and even polls or broadcast messages. However, it isn’t as advanced as some other platforms like Discord and Slack in one aspect — link previews. Thankfully, change looms on the horizon.
WhatsApp brings back the long-lost swipeable navigation bar
Hopefully, it sticks around for longer this time
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WhatsApp introduced a bottom navigation bar to its Android app roughly a year ago to align with the Material Design guidelines. However, this meant that the previous swipeable tabs experience had to go away, although WhatsApp appeared to have a change of heart in June, with swipeable tabs making an appearance in a beta. It didn't take long for the feature to disappear, however, only to make a comeback again in September. WhatsApp then removed support for swipe gestures in subsequent updates, but it looks like the Meta-owned chat app hasn't fully given up on it yet, with the latest beta version marking the reappearance of the swipeable navigation bar.
WhatsApp is adding voice transcripts and longer videos for status updates
Voice transcripts arrive on Android nearly a year after iOS
WhatsApp aces the convenience aspect of messaging, and it stands out among our favorite encrypted messaging apps for features like passkey support and accessibility bits like voice messaging and support for multiple operating systems. However, we have struggled with poor feature parity across these OS-specific client apps. Developers are chipping away at this problem, because recent beta versions of the app reveal Android users could soon enjoy voice message transcription and longer video uploads in status updates.
Google sets a date, feds flex, and WhatsApp goes pin-crazy in this week's news
This week in Android: Samsung makes some questionable choices and the US government chooses violence
The biggest announcements of the year for the Android platform are coming in a matter of weeks, as Google has finally set a date for I/O 2024. At the same time, Apple's dragging its feet, holding Google back from releasing a feature we've been eagerly anticipating for months. But we finally got official word on the next big midrange phone, and it won't be from Samsung — at least in the US. Speaking of, the American government exerted a bit of power on the tech world, and WhatsApp seems to think the pin is mightier than the sword in this week's top five Android headlines.
Privacy and security of user data are high on WhatsApp’s list of priorities, and that perhaps helps the app remain one among the best encrypted instant messaging apps out there. The company recently started testing a new label to emphasize chat encryption, and other recently-released utilities already help keep your chats secure from prying eyes.
WhatsApp status continues its quest to basically just become Instagram stories
Just in case you forgot Meta is in the business of social apps
WhatsApp has been around for close to two decades now, but this year marks ten years under Meta ownership. In this time, Meta’s other social media apps with an instant messaging focus, such as Instagram and Messenger, have had a huge impact on WhatsApp, influencing how Stories, status updates, and ephemeral messages were implemented. Now, it appears, WhatsApp is set to copy another aspect from Instagram by letting users tag their contacts in status updates.
WhatsApp pins its hopes on pinning support, now for up to three messages
Pin this, pin that, pin everything
WhatsApp is one of the hottest instant messaging apps around, but we often lament the lack of feature parity across platforms and how it often trails behind rival apps like Telegram and Signal, even in terms of core features. For years now, WhatsApp has allowed pinning up to three conversations in the Chats tab, and one message in each conversation. The Meta-owned platform upped the pinning limit to five conversations, and now, there’s word the in-conversation message pinning limit is going up as well.
WhatsApp is gearing up to resurrect chat filters this year
The feature was first spotted in development last summer
As one of our favorite messaging apps today, we keep a close eye on the changes coming to WhatsApp. Beta versions often give us a good idea about what's to come from future releases. However, not every beta feature makes it to the stable version. We figured the same fate would befall chat filters, which first surfaced in July last year, offering onscreen buttons above the chat list to sort conversations. We haven't heard much about it since then, apart from a follow-up beta release in September, leading us to believe that it's gone for good. But that doesn't appear to be the case with WhatsApp developers rolling out these filters again in the app's latest beta for Android.
WhatsApp now blocks you from taking screenshots of profile pictures
The feature appears to be rolling out widely
WhatsApp has taken several steps in recent years to bolster the security of its platform and deliver a safer and more secure chat experience. With view-once media, you can use WhatsApp to share private photos and videos with your friends or family without worrying about them forwarding the content to others. They cannot even take screenshots of the view-once media. To further boost user privacy on its platform, Meta is now rolling out screenshot blocking for profile pictures on WhatsApp.
If you live in a region where WhatsApp is the primary messaging app, you'll realize that the chat list can get crowded pretty quickly. This is particularly true today with businesses joining the platform to touch base with their customers (although it's largely just spam). Makers of WhatsApp understood way back in 2017 that the ability to pin your favorite conversations to the top of the chat list should be a thing, but restricted users to just three chats. Nearly seven years have passed since, and WhatsApp is finally getting around to letting users pin two additional conversations, according to the app's latest beta for Android.
WhatsApp is testing a label to specify that your chats are encrypted
The chat app has come a long way since 2021
Encryption is one of the crucial aspects of modern-day messaging apps, ensuring conversations always remain protected. While WhatsApp has offered end-to-end encryption on chats and video calls for a while now, and the chat app has also gradually worked on increasing the visibility of encryption indicators, like the one we've seen in WhatsApp beta releases dating back to 2021. The latest version of the app's beta contains one such indicator directly below the contact or group's name.
WhatsApp may soon let you decide who can use your avatar in stickers
Privacy features for animated avatars were spotted in beta
Meta is continuously rolling out new features for its apps to enhance the user experience, and this applies to WhatsApp perhaps more than any of the company's offerings. The end-to-end encrypted instant messaging service was recently spotted piloting a feature that allows users to transform any image into a sticker, for instance. While this certainly adds another layer of personalization to the app, the usability of such features invites some privacy questions. Now, it looks like Meta could be addressing these concerns before they become problematic.