WhatsApp has been long rumored to introduce multi-device support for using the same account on up to four devices simultaneously. According to WABetaInfo, WhatsApp is also working on a few more new features like wallpaper customization, mute video, & read later
Out of these three features, the recent beta update rolled out for Android devices already included the advanced wallpaper customization. If you didn’t know, WhatsApp is the most popular instant messaging app in the world. As of October 2020, there are over two billion monthly active users on WhatsApp messenger.
WhatsApp working on wallpaper customization & read later features
During Facebook’s earnings call last month, Mark Zuckerberg revealed that around 100 billion messages are being delivered via WhatsApp daily. Over the last few months, WhatsApp has introduced several new options to improve user experience and productivity.
With the new wallpaper customization options, users can finally set a different wallpaper for each chat. When selecting any wallpaper, there will also be a slider in the “Chat Wallpaper” section to change its opacity. Users can pick a new chat wallpaper from the 32 new Bright wallpapers, 29 new Dark wallpapers, a custom wallpaper, and solid colors in the current beta version.
For the solid color wallpaper, the app will give the option to add WhatsApp Doodle as an overlay. Users can also select a previously used wallpaper from the “Wallpaper archive” section. The “Read Later” option is basically renamed “Archived Chats” with minor tweaks.
Users can soon mute the video before sharing it with others
This is currently in development and is not yet available even in the beta version. Like the archived chats in the current version, users have to swipe down on the app’s home screen to find the “Read Later” section at the top.
Once enabled, all the chats with new messages will show up only in the “Read Later” section and there won’t be any notifications too. It works in the same way as the previously reported vacation mode. Another new feature under development is the option to mute the video before sharing it with other users or posting it as status.
As of now, users only get the trim option in the video editing screen on WhatsApp. In the future, there will be a speaker icon just below the trimming bar to mute or unmute the audio. Earlier this month, WhatsApp also introduced disappearing messages. As the name suggests, the messages sent to a chat will disappear after 7 days.