Features of WhatsApp App
Ever since its launch, WhatsApp had taken the world by storm, and 2018 was no less hard-hitting with its 1.5 billion monthly active users. Since the start of this year, the coders at WhatsApp have had a pretty eventful year with a lot of new releases and testings of amazing new features.
One of the biggest banes of society “fake news” used, but the company was clear to announce that they have started testing measures that will curb this menace. However, this is not the only feature that it has been testing they have introduced some great features that have made the life of its users so much more connected.
Here is a recap of all the features released lately:
Group video and video calling
The WhatsApp group video and voice calling is now official for both iPhone as well as Android users. This feature has been undergoing testing for some time over a month and did work, but at this point, it can only support four people. With this feature, the users can come together and conduct VoIP calls.
WhatsApp Payments
This was probably one of the biggest launches this year with a lot of new digital payment platforms WhatsApp payment brought forth a simple way to transfer funds to one another by just using your UPI pin.
Group Admin Controls
The year 2018 was a big year for groups as the developers paid more focus to enhance this experience. Previously the group creator, as well as the participants, received the ability to change the description of the group. However, now the group admins have the right to restrict the participants from changing the description. At the same time, they can also decide whether All Participants or only Admins can change the subject and icon of the group. Another great highlight is that the admins can restrict a participant from sending a message to the group.
Use Siri for sending group messages
Previously Siri could be used to send a message to individual groups, however, now all you have to say is Siri send a message to the group (name), and it will be done.
Download all data
According to the new EU guidelines, you will be able to download all the data that has been collected by WhatsApp right from the time you first started using it. Messages won’t be included in this data due to end to end encryption.
Suspicious link indicator
This feature has been added to WhatsApp as an effort to cut down on the amount of spoofing, spam, and phishing on the platform. This feature will warn a user before they open a malicious link.
Forwarding restrictions
Ever since the problems of mob lynchings related to fake news via WhatsApp came to light, it announced that there would be strict limits that are put on message forwarding. The limit of sending the message to five chats per user may soon come into place. At the same time, it also tags the message with forwarded so that the recipient can stay alert and do a fact check before they send this message forward.
Jio Phone Support
Starting August 15 the Jio Phone and Jio Phone 2 will come equipped with WhatsApp. This app will allow users to input messages using voice commands as well as text.
Predictive Upload
This feature has the ability to predict which picture will be uploaded where and upload it to the server in advance.
Media Visibility
With the new Media visibility toggle, the user will be able to choose which groups or individuals can see your media content and who cant.