WhatsApp users: These five changes will change the way you experience the app

Popular messaging app, WhatsApp is cooking up new features that would change the way you use the app. The platform used by over two billion people worldwide is constantly designing new features to improve user experience. Thanks to keen industry watchers, we have an idea of the changes that you may soon be seeing on your app.

Different stages of development

The team at WABetaInfo that mines WhatsApp for updates has uncovered five key changes that they have noticed are being tried. Before rolling out a new feature, WhatsApp would run trials in the beta version. This allows some users to test out changes and give their feedback before they are made available to everyone. According to The Sun, here are some new features to be on the lookout for:

• An easier-to-use disappearing messages section
• The ability to quickly open chats with your own phone number
• A companion mode that lets you add another phone number to your existing WhatsApp account
• Automatic muting when you join very large WhatsApp groups
• New support for system-wide ‘Do Not Disturb’, which will reveal the calls you missed while the feature was activated

Timeline

These features are in different stages of development, and it is unclear when they will become available to users. Of particular interest to users would be the group chat feature which automatically mutes participants in large group chats. Presently, WhatsApp groups cannot have more than 512 members on the live version of the app. Even that figure will increase to 1,024 in soon-to-be-released updates.

Sources used:

The Sun: Alert for every WhatsApp user – app is changing forever in five big ways

Business Tech: 5 new features coming to WhatsApp