It’s not the most widely used of the star messaging apps, but that doesn’t mean it’s out of use: WhatsApp States has its audience. Aware that they should give it more presence, in Meta they reinforce this part of the application with a significant refresh: WhatsApp States receive five important news. From circles on avatars to link preview.
Meta is used to testing small changes in WhatsApp in the form of brush strokes, usually for betas. Once they are more than settled as experiments, the next step is to include all these new features in the stable application. They tend to sneak into the app; no matter how much each change ends up reaching users in drops. And we already have a new batch of improvements, this time focused on states.
Improvements to bring states to the front
Privacy selector in WhatsApp
Statuses aren’t used in WhatsApp to the same extent Stories are used in Instagram, and the two features are basically the same (and taken from Snapchat). Not that an instant messaging application needs a ephemeral and more or less public means of communication; even if states have their own public. To expand usage coverage, from Meta they give more power to WhatsApp States.
Many changes have already been appreciated by those who have used WhatsApp beta, both on Android and iPhone. With confirmation from Meta, the news reaches all users of the instant messaging platform. These novelties are:
- Privacy for States. It is possible to choose which specific contacts can access the States. By tapping on a specific post, WhatsApp offers a new privacy switcher.
- vocal states. WhatsApp allows ephemeral communications by voice: up to 30 seconds of audio.
- Reactions to States. As with the rest of the messages received and sent, it is also now possible to react to the States. Of course, only with eight Emojis: 😍, 😂, 😮, 😥, 🙏, 👏, 🎉 and 💯.
Reactions to WhatsApp statuses
- Status updates on WhatsApp avatars. Chats will display when one of the contacts has a status to display. To indicate this, a ring will appear around the contact icon.
- Overview of links in the United States. WhatsApp will show what is behind the links based on content preview.
All these new features will arrive gradually in the applications. Some features are already present, others may take time to land: WhatsApp will activate them from its servers and according to user accounts.
More information | Aim
