- WhatsApp is adding the ability to see who is online in a group chat and introducing new group notifications.
- It will also let you zoom into video calls and add some to an ongoing call from your chat thread.
- Channel admins can now use voice transcripts, video notes and share QR code to promote their channels.
WhatsApp stands as one of the best messaging platforms across the globe. This is all thanks to their efforts to regularly introduce new and exciting features on their app. In their blog post, the company recently shared a list of all the additions, which we will go over. There are a lot of interesting features to cover here, so let’s go over them quickly, starting off with changes to your WhatsApp group chats.
One of the new features is an “Online” indicator for WhatsApp group chats. This lets you easily find out which group members are currently online on WhatsApp. They also added an option to customize group notifications. You can now pick between “All” chat alerts or “Highlights” to limit notifications to only when someone mentions or replies to your message.
Events attachment is now available in personal chats, which we previously covered in our March features list. They are also rolling out tappable reactions, similar to Slack. Here, you can see who reacted with what, and tap on the same emoji to +1 their reaction. Oh, and did I mention, you can now set WhatsApp as your default Calls and Messages app on iPhones.
You can now pinch to zoom on video calls, add someone on an ongoing call directly from a chat thread by tapping the call icon, and selecting “Add to call”. They have also improved their video calling experience further, optimizing the routing system to find the best connection path.
Video notes, an underrated feature to record quick videos, and voice message transcripts are now available for Channel admins. They can also share a unique QR code now that links directly to their Channels.
So that wraps up everything new available in that is available on WhatsApp. If you don’t see any of these new features on your device, then make sure to update the app to the latest version. I enjoy the new notification management for groups, so I don’t get annoyed by contact pings from group chats.
