Instant messaging services are dime a dozen, but platforms like WhatsApp stand out among a crowd of competing services. We routinely come across new feature additions on WhatsApp, some aimed at improving functionality, while others are designed to enhance visual elements in the app. WABetaInfo has now uncovered a subtle but significant UI change with the latest WhatsApp Beta for Android.

The feature is rolling out through the Google Play Beta Program as part of version 2.23.8.4. It contains a new bottom navigation bar, bringing it on par with Google's design philosophy. The screenshots shared by WABetaInfo show that the bottom bar comprises four options - Chats, Communities, Status, and Calls.

As WABetaInfo notes, the redesigned bottom bar also looks similar to the one on the iOS version of WhatsApp, making the experience consistent for those who switch from Android to iOS and vice versa.

We don't know when this new bottom navigation bar will make its way to the stable version of the app, but we'll keep an ear to the ground for more information on this front. There's no fixed timeline for the bottom bar's arrival on WhatsApp for Android's stable version. But we expect this redesign to arrive over the next few weeks considering how important it is from a UI consistency perspective.

In the past week alone, we've learned about a couple of new features coming to the Meta-owned messaging app. An Instagram-style text editor was uncovered in a recent WhatsApp beta, while the company is also devising a way to enable fingerprint authentication for chats, a big new security feature that probably should have been in place already. Not all features rolled out by WhatsApp are perfect, such as polls, which made their way to the app in November. Thankfully, an update last month brought along a fix, enabling users to also vote on just one of the poll options rather than all of them.

Thanks, Moshe