Adam Kos At the end of last year and the beginning of the new one, WhatsApp began testing many new features that are expected to arrive in the iOS app sometime this year. In addition to the new Community function, a redesign of the chat list is also being prepared, the functionality of voice messages will be improved, or more colors of animated hearts will be added.
Voice messages in other chats
A few months ago, WhatsApp was already working on a global voice message player for its app. With the latest beta version marked 22.1.72, it finally brings this feature to its users. According to BetaInfo this feature will allow you to listen to voice memos even if you switch to another chat. So if you start listening to a voicemail from a contact and someone else sends you a text message, you can switch to that second chat and reply to the other person at the same time.
In the past few months, WhatsApp has also tweaked a bit how the player itself will look. As you can see in the screenshot above, the voice message will appear at the top of the app with a play/pause button, the contact's name, and a button to close the message. Unfortunately, it's still unclear when this feature will be available to all users of the stable version of the app, although it probably won't be long.
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Amaya Toman Chat list design
Application developers they are already testing a redesigned conversation list that will provide a clearer user interface. However, it is also planned to remove certain elements of the user interface. These are especially the items contained above the list itself, which just uselessly take up space here. They are also there in duplicate, even though they have been present in the interface for years. Everything should integrate just under the icon of starting a new chat, which is available at the top right.
Community
The Community feature was first mentioned at the beginning of November, but now they have appeared in addition to it further clarifying information. This is a new place where group admins have more control over groups, mainly to easily group others together. Although the community has a name and a description, similar to a regular group chat, the user will be able to choose the connection of up to 10 groups here.
Animated hearts
As you may know, when you send a single red heart emoji in a message, it starts beating. However, WhatsApp is planning to add animation to all other heart colors i.e. orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black and white. This is about the reaction to it, that there are no new emojis yet added to iOS 15 that users can start using in their chats.
Hide your status
The platform introduces and a new privacy protection measure that will hide your status from unknown accounts that have never interacted with you before. This way, strangers will not be able to find out if you are currently online or when you were last present in the application. In addition to this new measure, WhatsApp is testing a new option that will allow users to choose specific accounts to hide their status from permanently.
More minor news
- Users will be able to select different recipients when sending media in WhatsApp chat.
- When you receive a notification, the contact's name and profile photo will be displayed again.
- The Nearby Businesses feature lets you search for nearby businesses such as restaurants, grocery stores, clothing stores, and more.
- Contact information should also be redesigned to work better with search.
- Advanced search filtering will be added to WhatsApp Business, so you will be able to limit it to those contacts you have saved and those you don't, as well as search only in unread messages.
