If you’re a regular Whatsapp user, then you’ll know that it has seen some shake-ups over the last year or so, although none have rocked users as much as upcoming updates are predicted to…
Tell a story
You may have noticed that there is actually a status feature on Whatsapp, or perhaps it’s passed you by? It’d be easy enough not to see it; although it is signposted by a separate tab, the status feature is incredibly unpopular. You’ll probably either not have any friends updating their status with Facebook-style stories OR your 13 year old niece is there sharing filtered photos of her cat.
In an effort to boost engagement with the status function, Whatsapp are moving it to the main chat page where it will appear almost exactly like it does on Instagram, another Facebook, sorry – ‘Meta’ owned brand. If you aren’t familiar with Instagram, you can see an example below.
Once this feature goes live, you will be able to see someone’s latest status by clicking their profile photo on the chat page instead of the latest text you have exchanged with them, much the same as on facebook and Instagram (above).
Reactions
Another new feature coming to your Whatsapp is the reaction options (below), again this is inline with how reactions work on Facebook and you will be able to quickly react to a friend message rather than take the time to type a reply. Options look like they will be the standard love, like, laugh, shocked, cry and angry, but there will also be a ‘+’ option for selecting a more appropriate reaction.
Link Multiple Devices
The final and most exciting upcoming feature that we’re sharing with you is that you will soon be able to link multiple devices! Although you won’t be able to have complete use of all functions on the connected additional devices, you will be able to view and send messages. Connected devices will become disconnected after 4 weeks of inactivity and the additional devices will not be able to delete or clear any correspondence.
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