WhatsApp has begun testing a whole host of new features, the most notable of which is to do with new wallpapers. The messaging platform has also introduced Video Muting and Read Later features.
WhatsApp has been busy adding lots of other new innovations to the platform over recent weeks and months. Back in October WhatsApp announced that it would begin testing a shopping feature on the platform.
It also recently emerged that the ability to send messages that disappear on the platform had become a reality. This allowed users to send messages only available for a short period of time. The company claims that most messages are not intended to exist forever making the platform more like real life.
These new features mark a new cycle of development for the app. A range of new features is always exciting but we must stress these are only in testing and will not roll out to everyone for some time.
New WhatsApp wallpapers feature and video muting under testing
This feature was spotted in a recent beta of the app. In the future, it will allow users to set different wallpapers for each individual chat. They will also be able to set the opacity of each wallpaper.
It appears that there will be around 32 new Bright wallpapers, 29 new Dark wallpapers. There will also be a customer wallpaper as well as Solid Colors with WhatsApp doodle options.
The other interesting feature will allow users to mute a video before sending it on to another user. This will mean you can just send the visual of a video without the audio in the future. Perhaps quite a niche use for many but it will be nice to have that option.
Extension of Vacation Mode with Read Later function
The final new feature appears to be an extension of Vacation Mode which allows users to archive groups of messages and essentially ignore them. The Read Later function will separate chats from your main screen and stop notifications from those chats without having to mute them.
You will always be able to access them through the Read Later function. Users can also set the behavior on when and if chats should be moved back onto the main chats list.
All of these new WhatsApp features including the Wallpaper functions are still under testing with either Android Beta or on the iOS Beta branches. From past experience, we know that WhatsApp likes to take a long time before rolling out new features so it could be some time before we see these features across all users.