WhatsApp: 5 upcoming features

WhatsApp, one of the most popular cross platform instant messaging service has now become the centre nucleus of our lives wherein billions of messages are exchanged on it on a daily basis. And to improve the user experience, Facebook-owned WhatsApp constantly tries and updates the app with new features. Here are the five upcoming features making their way to the app in the near future to further improve the user experience.

QR Code

While the QR code scanning is present in the app but only works if you want to use the web version of WhatsApp. But son, the QR code scan will also help you add a new contact – thereby minimising the number of steps that are currently required. The QR code scan will let you add users by scanning their QR codes. The feature is expected to go live in next couple of months.

Dark Mode

This mode is designed to change the look and feel of the app. The dark mode does a cosmetic change to the app making the text from black to white to allow for easy viewing in the dark environments. Most of the devices or apps such as Facebook Messenger, Amazon Kindle now come with a dark mode. While the WhatsApp dark mode is not yet officially rolled out, you can try the feature by upgrading your device to Android Q beta. Here is how to enable dark mode on WhatsApp.

WhatsApp fingerprint authentication

Useful for users who are at risk of other people reading their chats, the upcoming fingerprint authentication feature will add an extra layer of security for the users to open the app. The feature will require user to authenticate themselves every time they open the app in future.

Sharing WhatsApp status post on Facebook

The company is working on a new feature that will allow users to share posts from their WhatsApp status with other apps. If you have enrolled yourself for WhatsApp beta programme, you will be able to see a new sharing option below your status, that can be used to post a status directly as your Facebook story or you can send it to other apps including Instagram, Gmail, or Google Photos.

Status works similar to the Instagram Stories-style feature that allows consumers to post images, text, and videos on their profile that disappear after 24 hours.

Contacts ranking

The new contacts ranking feature will pin your favourite contacts up on top all the time by detecting which contacts you interact more often.