Soon, WhatsApp will let you edit images directly
What's the story
Today, Facebook-owned WhatsApp dominates as the most used messaging app on the planet.
It hosts more than 1.5 billion people, keeps your chats end-to-end encrypted, and rolls out interesting features from time to time.
And now, in a major move, WhatsApp is getting a capability it has long been missing - the ability to edit photos directly.
Here's all about it.
Issue
Context: Photo editing has been a problem on WhatsApp
In case you don't know, one has to download and share photographs from the gallery to access the WhatsApp's options for editing, cropping, doodling, and annotating.
The process takes a lot of time, which makes it difficult for a user to quickly highlight certain elements of a photo received on the service.
This is particularly why many users don't even use WhatsApp's editing features.
Solution
However, an alternative solution is in the works
To tackle the issue, WhatsApp is developing an editing button for the app's Android and iOS iterations.
The option, dubbed Quick Edit, would be directly accessible; it will let you make quick edits and share the photograph directly from the chat.
It will be accessed from the three-dotted menu that shows up in the upper right corner when a photo is opened.
Fact
Original photo will not be replaced
The new button will make editing photos easier than ever, but making edits won't replace the original photo, WABetaInfo, the tipster that discovered the feature, reported.
This means, if you edit a received image, you will have two versions on your phone, the original shot as well as the modified version with some additional information attached to it.
Availability
Availability still remains a point of question
Having said that, there is no word on when the feature would be available for Android or iOS users.
It is still in alpha testing and has not been enabled for anyone, not even for those using the beta version of the messaging app.
However, hope is that the messaging giant will enable the capability in the coming weeks.