WhatsApp Roundup: Recently announced features you should know about
What's the story
WhatsApp is the most preferred instant messaging app with over 1.5 billion users worldwide.
The Facebook-owned company regularly adds new features to make the app better and more useful. A number of WhatsApp features have been announced in the past couple of months.
From predictive media uploads to improved admin controls for groups, here's a roundup of the latest features.
Take a look!
Admin controls
Admins now have new controls; can demote other admins, too
WhatsApp group admins can now control whether participants can make changes to the group's subject, icon, and description too.
Also, there's another new group-specific feature that allows an admin to demote other admins without removing them. This can be done by choosing "Dismiss as Admin" after tapping on the admin's name in "Group Info".
However, admins who created a particular group cannot be demoted.
Predictive Uploads
WhatsApp can now predict which images users would send
To help users in sharing images faster on its platform, WhatsApp recently launched the "Predictive Uploads" feature.
Through this, WhatsApp can predict and upload photos (selected to be sent by the user) to its servers in advance.
While this feature is available for WhatsApp on iOS, the newly launched feature is yet-to-be rolled out for Android; it may work on Android Beta versions.
Group Chats
This is an important group-centric WhatsApp feature
WhatsApp recently rolled out the "Send Messages" feature for groups, using which admins can choose to restrict participants from sending messages in the group.
To activate this, admins can go to Group Info> Group Settings> Send Messages and choose "Only Admins".
This allows only admins to send messages; it's helpful when admins want to make announcements or use it as a one-way communication tool.
Curbing Misinformation
Steps taken by WhatsApp to stop spread of rumors, fake-news
WhatsApp announced a feature to indicate which messages received by a user have been forwarded to them by labeling them as "Forwarded Message" in the chats.
To prevent the spread of misinformation, it's also gradually rolling out a feature to limit users, especially in India, to forward a message only "five" times.
WhatsApp also began labeling fraudulent links as "Suspicious Links" in the chats.
Read/Unread messages
You can now mark conversations as read or unread
Users can mark messages as read/unread by selecting a conversation and choosing "Mark as Read/Unread" option. However, it doesn't change anything for the sender.
WhatsApp may soon introduce two new notification panel shortcuts to allow users to mark chats as "read" or mute them, without even opening the app. The notification panel currently has "reply" option. The features are currently available in Android beta.
Media Visibility
WhatsApp allows users to control media visibility in gallery
WhatsApp's new "Media Visibility" feature allows users to control whether they want to see WhatsApp media in their device's gallery.
The files will be downloaded but not shown in the gallery; it's useful when users don't want to show WhatsApp media to others.
Users can go to "View Contact" or "Group Info" and select yes/no under "Media Visibility". It's currently available in Android beta.