The popular communication app WhatsApp is constantly changing with updates for both iOS and Android users.<\/p>\n
New features either in the pipeline or soon to be implemented include things such as changes to media forwarding, status updates and ways to interact in groups.<\/p>\n
WhatsApp remains one of the most popular texting apps in South Africa, with family groups, community groups and more all having a place to discuss and share information.<\/p>\n
According to WhatsApp data service, WABetaInfo<\/a>, here are a handful of changes you can expect soon:<\/p>\n 1. Forwarding media with a caption<\/strong><\/p>\n WhatsApp has now made it possible to forward media sent to you by another person with a caption<\/a> <\/strong>underneath it. The new update is for iOS and is currently being rolled out.<\/p>\n Before this update, when you forwarded media – either photos, videos, documents or even GIFs – the caption did not carry across in the message.<\/p>\n WABetaInfo said that the new update is being rolled out on the App Store for some users.<\/p>\n 2. Voice status updates<\/strong><\/p>\n WhatsApp has been developing a new feature to bring voice notes to status updates. This feature which was initially designed for WhatsApp beta on Android, and is not yet a feature on the iOS beta, said WABetaInfo.<\/p>\n With the new feature, you could voice note up to 30 seconds to your status.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n 3. Mute shortcut for group chats<\/strong><\/p>\n WABetaInfo reported that a feature to mute group chats through a shortcut<\/a><\/strong> icon is currently under development by the WhatsApp team.<\/p>\n “A mute shortcut will show up within the header of group chats: thanks to this shortcut, it will be easier to disable notifications of messages received in the group,” said WABetaInfo.<\/p>\n 4. Contact card sharing<\/strong><\/p>\n According to WABetaInfo, WhatsApp is now releasing a new update to some users on the Microsoft Store – with people now being able to share contact cards right<\/a> <\/strong>within the same chat share sheet.<\/p>\n 5. Creating polls<\/strong><\/p>\n The ability to make a poll for members of the group has been announced by Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg, for Facebook. However, this feature has been slowly released to all users on mobile devices.<\/p>\n After releasing the feature on WhatsApp beta for Windows<\/a><\/strong> – on 22 November – it seems that the rollout is now wider since everyone on the latest version of WhatsApp Desktop can finally create polls, said WABetaInfo.<\/p>\n 6. Cross-platform accounts<\/strong><\/p>\n Whatsapp appears to be trialling a companion mode<\/a><\/strong> for the app where Andriod users could be able to use an existing Whastapp account on a secondary Andriod device – this will become a listed device under its selection.<\/p>\n WABetaInfo noted that this is still in its beta phase.<\/p>\n 7. Search for messages by date<\/strong><\/p>\n According to WABetaInfo, Whatsapp’s beta for iOS seems to be rolling out the ability to search for messages by date<\/a><\/strong> within a chat.<\/p>\n “It will be easier for users to jump to a certain date within a conversation. In reality, this feature was under development two years ago, but WhatsApp only recently returned to develop it again,” said WABetaInfo.<\/p>\n 8. Disappearing messages<\/strong><\/p>\n WABetaInfo reported that the messaging app is redesigning its disappearing messages section<\/a><\/strong> – making it easier to make old and new chats as disappearing threads with a shortcut.<\/p>\n The group noted that this is currently being rolled out in an Android beta.<\/p>\n
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