The chat app has already introduced several privacy measures to make it safer for its users and take on its nearest rivals like Viber in Asia and Facebook’s own Messenger app.
At the start of the year, Instant messenger brought new features like ‘Frequently Forwarded’, ‘Forwarding Info’ and Group Calling shortcut that allowed you to start group voice and video calls with a simple tap of the button.
According to Business Today here are five features that WhatsApp might introduce in the coming months.
Dark Mode: This is the most anticipated feature which users can’t wait to have. This mode is already available on other messaging platforms and WhatsApp should have had it by now. The feature has been under-development for long now and reports suggest that ‘Dark Mode’ might finally see the light in the coming few months.
Hide Muted Status: The Hide Muted Status feature will come with Android beta update 2.19.183 and will give you an option to hide the status updates from specific people from the contact list. The new Hide button is seen right next to the Muted Updates section.
Just press the Hide button to make all the muted status updates vanish. You can bring them back by pressing the ‘Show’ button that replaces the ‘Hide’ button to bring the Muted
Fingerprint Lock: WhatsApp is working on a fingerprint unlocking mechanism for Android phones. The new authorization method will make third party locking apps, which were very popular, redundant. The fingerprint authentication mechanism will add an extra layer of security as WhatsApp users will have to authenticate themselves every time they open the app. There are chances that WhatsApp could also bring the Face to unlock feature too for the Android users.
Share status: As reported by The Sause last month, WhatsApp will soon allow its users to share their status posts on Facebook, Instagram, Gmail, and Google Photos.
The transfer of the status is made using the data-sharing API used by iOS and Android. The API lets users share content without linking the accounts.
As a security measure, these status posts on WhatsApp won’t get shared automatically and the user will have to decide actively to share the status post.
Ranking of contacts: WhatsApp will soon bring a feature that will keep your favorite contacts up on top all the time. The ranking feature will automatically rank contacts by detecting which contacts you interact with more.
In May 2019, The Sauce also reported that WhatsApp had announced it will soon withdraw support for all smartphones running any version of the Windows operating system.
The messaging app will no longer work on handsets powered by Microsoft’s software in December 2019.
