WhatsApp has been working on hard this year on improving their application for users after losing millions of users in 2020. The notorious privacy terms and conditions debacle of 2020 saw millions of users migrate from WhatsApp to competitors such as Signal and Telegram. This decision and the immediate results thereof made WhatsApp rethink their decision, ending up having delayed the privacy terms update.
Now WhatsApp is ready to reel in those users again as well as keep loyal Whatsapp users happy with these 7 app updates that will get you rather excited.
1. Read later and vacation mode
This one is particularly exciting as most of the world went from office jobs to working from home. This meant that suddenly everyone thought they had the right to invade your privacy by contacting you via WhatsApp, making it incredibly difficult to keep any sense of work boundaries. Users will now be able to move messages to a “Read Later” folder which will be combined with a vacation mode feature.
This will mean that when a user switches on the “Vacation mode” feature, they will not receive any messages directly in their inbox. Instead messages will move to to the “Read later” option which can be read at any time.
However, the best part of this “Vacation mode” feature is that users can also select some contacts such as their inner circle of close friends and family who can still send messages in their inbox.
2. ‘Instagram Reels’
With short video creation apps gaining popularity all around the globe, WhatsApp has decided to also get in on the action and create WhatsApp Reels.
3. Multi-device support
One of the well-known frustration of WhatsAppAs that is known is the fact that a user cannot access their WhatsApp on another device. The only other device that is allowed to connect to your account is your desktop app or your web browser app. Soon, users will be allowed to sign-in on secondary devices. This is currently in the BETA testing phase.
4. Join the missed call group
As per a report from WABetaInfo, WhatsApp is also planning to improve its group calling feature by offering a feature that allows users to join missed group video or audio calls. For example, if someone has invited you to join a group call and you can’t join at that time, then you can join the ongoing call in between. Reportedly, the ‘Join Missed Calls’ feature will have two options, namely ignore and skip.
5. Move WhatsApp chats between Android and iOS
Has migrating platforms with your mobile been a real pain? Well, not for much longer as the app will now allow you to move your messages and chats between IOS and Android.