With more than two billion active userbases, WhatsApp is the most popular messenger app in the world. But, it is a hard task for the Meta-owned company to widen the lead as competitors, particularly Telegram and Signal are gaining prominence with their user-privacy-centered features. Also, the former is steadily adding new value-added features and has the potential to beat WhatsApp.
WhatsApp too is not sitting idle and has lately introduced several new features and even planning to bring Android to iPhone chat history transfer option, new in-app help service, drawing tools for video and image editing, and more.
Now, the company has released a new update to WhatsApp for iOS that brings two major new features. Once updated to the new firmware version (v22.2.76), the user will be able to pause and resume while creating voice messages.
Users just have to swipe up to lock a recording and then tap the pause or resume buttons to continue the process.
Another major feature is that WhatsApp will now come under Apple’s Focus mode, which was released with the iOS 15 update. So, if the iPhone user has enabled the ‘Do not disturb’ or ‘Work mode’ or ‘Driving mode’, or ‘Sleeping mode’ on, the calls and messages will be blocked during the pre-set time frame. Also, there are provisions for users to allow certain members of the contact list. For instance, you can allow family members or office colleagues (boss/supervisor) over-ride the focus mode feature and get the call or message notified on the iPhone.
Also, going forward, all new WhatsApp notifications will come with a photo of the sender on the Lock Screen of an iPhone. With the addition of the profile display, it will definitely create an urge for the user to see the message, particularly if it comes from a family member or close friend.
With just the name on the notification, there was a chance of ignoring the message and viewing it later. But with the photo, there will be less chance of disregarding the message.
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