WhatsApp recently updated their app with some new features, including the ability to make video and voice calls directly from your WhatsApp account.
Many users were excited to download this update, as it’s one of the most requested features in the past few years (and for good reason—it’s wonderful!).
However, others were less than thrilled about this new update because it removed some of their favorite features and changed WhatsApp completely.
In this article, we’ll talk about what the new update brings and what you can expect from it in the future.
Overview of the new WhatsApp update
WhatsApp has announced an update that will change the way messaging works. The new update is slated for release in 2022 and will bring some big changes to the app.
Users will now be able to send messages with a time limit of 10 seconds, after which they will disappear, as well as share photos and videos of up to 10 seconds in length, which will also disappear shortly after they are viewed.
Users can also set a timer on their message before it disappears. Once the timer runs out, a user will receive notification if another person opens their message.
If a recipient does not open the message in time, it goes away forever. In addition to these features, users will be able to respond to messages directly from notifications rather than opening the app.
The final feature that will come with the update is something called Secret Chats, or private chats that only show a contact’s name without any other information like phone numbers or email addresses.
All conversations in Secret Chats are encrypted end-to-end so that no one else can see what is being said. Messages have a self-destruct timer but can be saved by pressing save at the top right corner of the conversation window.
If a recipient presses save, then all previous messages will appear in blue font and the newest message will appear in black font. Messages sent in Secret Chat mode cannot be forwarded to anyone outside of the chat group.
How to download the new update
WhatsApp recently announced a new update that will be released in 2022. It includes a number of exciting new features, including the ability to use an animated GIF as your profile picture.
Downloading this update is easy, and you can do so by updating your app on the Play Store or Apple App Store. The download will only take a few seconds, but if it doesn’t show up right away then just restart the app and try again.
To make sure that you have downloaded the update successfully, open your settings menu from within WhatsApp and click Privacy then Profile Picture.
Your animated GIF should appear in this menu next to other types of profile pictures. If you don’t see it here, then the update didn’t install correctly and you’ll need to delete and re-download the app.
Once you’ve verified that the update
installed correctly, share your newest profile picture with friends! They’re going to love seeing what you did for their birthday – especially when they find out that it’s a moving gif.
And if you’re worried about security, there are no worries because all gifs are encrypted in the same way as videos sent over WhatsApp.
There’s also a new chat feature called Chat Replay which lets you replay any of your conversations whenever you want (as long as the person who you had that conversation with hasn’t deleted their messages).
You’ll also be able to save groups into chats which makes organizing them much easier.
Another great feature is that photos taken with Google Photos will automatically upload through WhatsApp so that all of your family members can enjoy them, no matter where they live.
Whats new in the update
We’re excited to share that we’ve been working on some new features, and we hope you like them. These updates will help you stay closer with your friends and family, while also keeping conversations more secure.
We’re rolling out these features in stages, so not everyone will get the update at once. Once you receive it, all of your chats will be updated accordingly.
When you open a chat thread, the date stamp on top of it indicates how recent a message is.
If it’s Yesterday, then all messages are within 24 hours; if it’s Tomorrow, then they’re within 1 day; if it’s Today, they’re less than an hour old; and if there is no date stamp, then all messages are between 1 week to 1 year old. Group Chats now have two tabs for Recent and All Messages.
To keep your chats organized, when someone sends a message to a Group Chat (as opposed to starting up their own), the most recent messages from that Group Chat will show up first in the conversation list.
Tap on any of those threads to see other people’s responses or tap ‘All Messages’ to see everything that has happened in the Group Chat. If you want to make changes to your group chats, go into Settings>Chats>Group Chats and choose one from the list.
Tap Edit then choose what happens when someone posts something new or starts a chat: either push notifications are turned off for both messages, only pushes for new messages are turned off, or only push notifications for new threads are turned off.
Bug fixes and performance improvements
In response to user feedback, we’ve made the following changes in this release:
We’ve fixed an issue that prevented users from interacting with the visual voicemail screen
We’ve fixed some issues regarding video playback on Android devices
We’ve resolved a bug where videos shot in portrait mode would be shown sideways on landscape screens
We’ve addressed an issue of unusually high battery usage by the app’s background activity. – We’ve resolved a bug that prevented read messages being marked as read when they were replayed automatically during an ongoing call.
We’ve added support for Arabic keyboards when entering text into messages or status updates, and improved voice transcription quality for Arabic speakers.
The front camera will now open much more quickly for all iPhone models except the iPhone XR (which has a new dual-camera system)
The ability to edit photos before sending them has been removed, but you can still crop or rotate your images before sharing them.
Users who want to resize their images should tap the image once it appears on their device and use the cropping tool at the bottom of the screen.
