WhatsApp is rolling out a way to conceal your “last seen” status from detailed contacts and the capability to leave a group without notifying other users.
You can hide your last seen status from the contacts of your choosing. WhatsApp began hiding users’ online status from outsiders by default. While this was an effort in the right direction, it still allows your entire list of contacts to see whether or not you’re online.
WhatsApp’s upcoming update is supposed to fix that, as it will let you choose which contacts can see your status. So if you don’t want someone to know that you’re ignoring their message, toggle on the setting for that user, and they’ll never see the difference.
WhatsApp is also launching another handy feature that will let you silently leave groups. Right now, the app notifies every user in the group of your departure, which could prompt some group members to message you privately to ask why you left.
The new feature is the digital equivalent to the Irish Goodbye the act of leaving a party without telling anyone and should help eliminate the awkwardness of exiting a chat.
WhatsApp says it’ll start rolling out these two features this month and that it’s also working on the way to block users from taking screenshots of “view once” messages. Unlike disappearing messages, view once messages don’t vanish after a specific time limit they go away after the recipient has seen it once, sort of like a photo or video sent through Snapchat.
Adding a way to block screenshots could help prevent users from saving or sharing sensitive information with others. This feature’s still in testing, but WhatsApp says it’ll start rolling it out to users “soon.”
WhatsApp has made several other small but meaningful updates this year. In addition to rolling out emoji reactions and introducing a way to speed up voice messages, the platform also started letting Android users transfer their chat history to iPhone.
WhatsApp updates often come stout and fast. It’s the world’s most widespread chat app, with an estimated 2 billion users flinging messages worldwide every month.
If you’re one of the WhatsApp trustworthy, then it’s worth maintaining tabs on the latest updates and modifications made to the app and potential additions and tweaks on the horizon.
Having been released from a preview stage, WhatsApp will allow users to preview their voice messages in the instant messaging app before sending them. At the risk of noting the obvious, the new feature will help ensure that you don’t accidentally send something with a vocal mistake or an overly-wrought and rambling voice note.
Equally, for those who can fire off alert messages when handling feisty or hot-headed, this feature allows you to reflect on what you’ve said before you send it; think of it as a personal social safety measure.
The WhatsApp public beta across many formats now sustains multi-device combability, which, as the name suggests, lets you use WhatsApp across several devices rather than requiring you to transfer it over each time.
Up to four companion devices can be linked at one time. And interestingly, if you don’t connect to devices across 14 days, they’ll be disconnected, thus helping with security. In addition, end-to-end encryption will be applied across all these companion devices.
One annoying element of WhatsApp is that chat backups can fast balloon in size if not scrutinized, especially if you’re in a chat where people send many images and videos. These backups can become gigabytes in size, causing swapping phones and restoring conversations difficult.
However, that could soon transform as the folks at WABetaInfo have deep dive into the latest WhatsApp beta. A function called “Manage backup size” was found to give users more control over what calls are backed up and a real-time estimate of the size of a potential backup before it’s executed.
It seems like a useful feature and one we’d expect Facebook to bring to WhatsApp, rather than just a feature it’s experimenting with.
Your WhatsApp transmissions are end-to-end encrypted, which implies nobody can access those messages except you and the individual (or people) you sent them to. However, your iCloud backups are not so protected. They are encrypted; since they lack end-to-end encryption, Apple can decrypt them if they like.
But WABetaInfo has realized end-to-end encrypted backups on the iOS rendition of WhatsApp. Decryption keys belong to the user, and secure your chats to keep them safe should anyone acquire access to your iCloud account.
There’s no mention of when it’ll come out of beta, but it suggests you shouldn’t have long to linger to add that extra bit of security to your conversations.
Voice notes are helpful, but only if you can listen to them. If you can’t, they’re useless, which may be why WhatsApp will give you the option of transcribing them.
First spotted on iOS by WABetaInfo and later confirmed by WhatsApp, the feature will send audio off to be transcribed and returned in a readable format. However, rather than sending it to the parent company Facebook, which holds a reputation for not overlooking user privacy, iOS data will be sent to Apple. Likewise, this feature would probably send Android voice data to Google, though that’s not been verified.
Unfortunately, WhatsApp has said this element is still in the “very early stages of designing and prototyping.” So it’s not heading to be arriving anytime soon.
There’s a lot WhatsApp can do, but users still expect plenty of missing features. Thankfully two of them are on track: the chance to transfer chat history between Android devices and better multi-device support.
Multi-device aid is available to beta users, allowing you to access WhatsApp on four different devices simultaneously even if your phone isn’t in the distance. Devices will still require you to link to your mobile, but the link will expire if you don’t employ your phone for two weeks.
Sharing chat history on Android is slated as a timed-Samsung exclusive and is assigned to arrive on Samsung phones in the next few weeks. But, of course, it will also be coming to other Android phones shortly we don’t know when.
The standard beta code miners at WABetaInfo have unveiled new emojis for Android beta WhatsApp users, emphasizing devoted designs. Following the Unicode Consortium’s Emoji 13.1 update, which submits 217 new official universal emojis for others to comprise or build upon, the new WhatsApp emojis have reportedly emerged on the 2.21.16.10 WhatsApp Android beta.
They include unique heart emojis, seeming to communicate a mended heart and a burning heart, as well as close affection between people. While another emerges to be an emoji for having one’s ‘head in the clouds.’ These emojis will likely come to the entire Android rendition of WhatsApp before too long, given they’re already available on the iOS 14.5 version.