Summary
WhatsApp improved.. With Meta in charge, WhatsApp development has been moving forward steadily, especially in the last year, as features have been introduced often to help the platform compete with powerful rivals in the encrypted messaging market, such as Signal and Telegram. Despite being a short month, February has been no different, so to help you stay informed, we’ll go over all the major developments that have occurred so far.
Communities and Channels are always improving
WhatsApp Channels, which had a widespread launch in September of last year, have gained popularity fast as a means for celebrities and companies to communicate with big audiences. These communications’ one-to-many format creates special issues, such as the possibility of an excessive number of emoji responses to a well-liked post. We found out last month that WhatsApp may soon allow Channel owners to turn off comments on their postings, which might help keep things from becoming too overwhelming or head off confrontations before they start. It’s unclear whether this feature will remain a permanent part of Channels, however, given it hasn’t been released yet and was only seen in development on the beta channel.
In the meanwhile, WhatsApp has started testing a feature that allows you to quickly access your favorite Channels by pinning them to the top of your list. Lastly, the option to share Channel content via Status updates became available to users of the stable app for iOS, Android, and the web. Although channel postings could previously be shared in one-on-one and group conversations, publishing them as a status update offers a convenient option to obligingly notify friends and followers about events in your preferred channels.
WhatsApp Communities, which were first announced in 2022 and began to roll out formally last year, have made it possible to combine many smaller groups into one huge meeting area, which has been especially helpful for businesses. Each community has an Announcements group where administrators may share pertinent information with all members. Only administrators are allowed to create these Announcements, however this month’s WhatsApp beta for Android v2.24.4.12 revealed a change that suggests common members in Communities may soon be able to respond to messages in the Announcements group.
A dash of individual flare
WhatsApp kept working on a future feature that would let users register usernames in the app in February. After being discovered for the first time in May 2023, there was a protracted period of inactivity until it was discovered once again in December of the same year. More activity was seen this month as images surfaced that revealed the alphanumeric criteria for login validation.Rewinding to the topic of WhatsApp Status updates, there was indication this month that the Status tab would soon get a preview in the form of a card. We anticipate that this new layout, which replaces the previous one with a circular display picture, will soon make its way into the stable channel. For now, it is only accessible in beta.
Maintaining confidentiality and security
Security features like end-to-end encryption are a big part of WhatsApp’s appeal, and Meta hasn’t strayed from this theme in its most recent releases. There is a feature that prevents other users from taking screenshots of your profile image in the most recent beta releases from February. You may already conceal your photo from particular individuals on the app, but this new feature goes a step further.Regarding security, WhatsApp has made a further advancement in combating spam messages, an issue that has been more prevalent on the site as its user base expands. All users on the stable channel may now report a sender’s account as spam and ban them immediately from the message notifications button. This eliminates the need to launch WhatsApp and enables you deal with spammers right from your lock screen.
Not to be forgotten are talks
Finally, in February, Meta made some improvements to the basic experience in its messenger, and there will be some new updates coming to WhatsApp conversations. The development of a feature that would let you star favorite conversations for easy access—something that had previously been seen on iOS and was probably coming to Android as well—was disclosed while work on WhatsApp Web was underway.Mark Zuckerberg just revealed last week that more sophisticated text formatting capabilities, like as the ability to create numbered lists, bulleted lists, block quotes, and inline code by appending certain characters to text strings, are making their way to the stable channel. Not too long after, we found out that WhatsApp could eventually allow you to transmit high-quality media by default. While the functionality is currently in development and not even accessible to beta testers at this time, we anticipate seeing it soon in the stable channel.
We can’t wait to see what March has in store for WhatsApp, especially with all these changes happening in a short month. The rapid development rate of Meta hasn’t showed any signs of slowing down, and the year-long release of entertaining and useful features has greatly contributed to WhatsApp’s ongoing appeal.
