WhatsApp to introduce photo albums, updates to text status and live location feature

Whatsapp is working on introducing an ‘Album’ feature for its users on Android and iOS, there is no word on the feature coming to Windows Phone. The ‘Album’ feature’ collapses all the photos to make them seem like the ‘Album’ post on Facebook where you can see the first four images at once. All other images are bundled inside with a numbered overlay on the fourth image informing about the number of images bundled inside.

Image Credit: WABetaInfo

Once you tap the Album, it will open to show you all the images that are part of the album. This feature will greatly reduce the flood of images in the conversation or groups if a person shared more than five images at once. This feature is hidden at the moment in the beta Android and iOS versions of the app but it is expected that this feature will be enabled soon as reported by WABetaInfo.

Image Credit: WABetaInfo

The second feature that the company is working on is the introduction of ‘Text statuses’ in the ‘Status’ tab. This comes as a welcome addition for users who would not want to post photos on their statuses. Currently, this feature allows you to change the background colour of the status updates and you can reply to the messages as usual.

Image Credit: WABetaInfo

Image Credit: WABetaInfo

The developers have also improved ‘Live Location’ sharing option so that you can see the locations of your WhatsApp contacts on a map. The interface also shows the speed of your contacts are they are moving. These new features come days after WhatsApp added support for SiriKit that allowed users to use Siri to check their new messages.

Publish date: April 25, 2017 12:48 pm| Modified date: April 25, 2017 12:57 pm

Old WhatsApp status makes a return as ‘WhatsApp Info’, ‘Revoke’ feature renamed to ‘Unsend’

Image: AFP

By Rehan Hooda /  28 Feb 2017 , 13:21

WhatsApp has faced a considerable amount of backlash and criticism from users ever since it rolled out the new ‘WhatsApp Status‘ feature. The company has been panned by users to copying Snapchat and Instagram and removing the old WhatsApp ‘Status’.

Keeping the customer feedback in mind, the company is planning to bring the old version of ‘Status’ back but one thing to note is that this does not mean that WhatsApp is removing the new Snapchat-like disappearing ‘Status’ update feature.

The ‘Info’ section is available as a hidden feature on the beta version of WhatsApp and has been introduced in the extended menu above the ‘Settings’ option on Android. Tapping that will bring the users to the all familiar ‘Status’ menu which has been renamed to ‘Info’.

The changes have been added to the ‘Profile’ section too and the ‘Info’ has been added back to the profile. One thing to note is that the company had previously renamed the Old status to ‘Tagline’ as reported by WABetaInfo. Another interesting thing is that the company seems to have rolled out the message ‘revoke’ feature that we previously reported.

WhatsApp developers have renamed the feature to ‘Unsend’ from the previous name of ‘Revoke’. This option is available in the three dot menu on the top right-hand centre when you long press to select a message. On tapping the ‘Unsend’ message, WhatsApp asks you to confirm if you want to ‘Unsend this message?’ On confirmation, the message that you sent turns to ‘This message was unsent’.

The feature is not enabled from WhatsApp servers so this does not reflect on the other side, but this points out that the feature is set to rollout for everyone in near future.