WhatsApp has become an extremely popular messenger app among the general population these days. It is hard to stumble upon someone who doesn’t use the app and it has become a primary source of communication for some, with traditional text messaging being pushed to the sidelines. This is most likely due to the fact that WhatsApp is free to use, and the team behind it constantly updates the app, bringing new features to it regularly. Most recently, WhatsApp added a video calling feature to its app after testing it for many months. Soon after that, it was reported that the Facebook owned WhatsApp was testing a video streaming feature, and that said feature is now available for the app on Android.
With the latest WhatsApp update, users will now be allowed to play videos right away without the need to wait for it to download. For example, as the video is being downloaded to your device, the video will be played simultaneously. Before this, videos shared on the messaging app had to be downloaded first, be it automatically or manually, before it could be watched on the device. Instead of a download button on shared videos, a play button will now appear, which you can tap, and the video will start streaming, though the speed it takes to open and stream will depend on your Internet speed. The size of the video can be seen at the bottom of the video dialogue box. This new feature is great for users who opt to manually download media content on WhatsApp, as you can stream the video first before deciding to download it or not.
However, that is not all, as WhatsApp now supports another feature which comes in the form of animated GIF support which was previously only available for WhatsApp beta users back in August. This feature will allow you to convert any video under six seconds, into a GIF which can then be shared among your contacts. In order to send a GIF to a contact, simply select the attach file button on the top right corner of the app page. Then select your Gallery and pick the GIF you would like to share. Once doing so, you will be allowed crop the GIF to your preferred size, before sending it out.