Animated stickers to QR codes: All new features of WhatsApp
What's the story
Continuing its push to make communication easier for billions of people around the world, WhatsApp is rolling out a series of new features for its app on Android, iOS, and KaiOS. The capabilities are not major upgrades but handy tweaks that will make the popular messaging service even more convenient to use than before. Here's all you need to know about it.
Feature #1
Animated stickers are now available
WhatsApp has long had stickers (billions sent every day), and now, it also supports animated stickers that let you express even more without saying or typing anything. Sending these new, automatically-playing stickers would not be different; you will get the option to save/forward incoming animated stickers, download native animated stickers from WhatsApp's own sticker store or import from third-party animated sticker apps.
Feature #2
QR codes for quickly adding contacts
Along with sticker support, WhatsApp is also getting an interesting QR code feature. The option works seamlessly and enables you to add the contact of a person on the messaging service by simply scanning their QR code. It comes as a nifty improvement that saves the mess of entering their number manually into contacts for messaging someone on WhatsApp.
Feature #3
Improved group calling experiences
Also, given that we are in the midst of a pandemic and people are heavily reliant on virtual meetings, WhatsApp is improving the group calling experience of its apps. Specifically, the company is enabling a way (press-and-hold) to maximize the view of a participant during a group video call as well as adding an instant video button for groups of up to 8 people.
Feature #4, #5
Dark mode for WhatsApp Web and Status for KaiOS
Finally, as WABetaInfo tipped, the dark mode has arrived on the web and desktop versions of WhatsApp and can be enabled right away. In addition to this, for all those who use WhatsApp on KaiOS-powered feature phones, the company is bringing the highly popular Status feature, which lets you share and view self-disappearing photo and video updates.
Information
Roll-out over the coming weeks
The roll-out has begun and the features should become available with the latest version of WhatsApp for Android, iOS, and KaiOS in the coming weeks.