Solving the slight inconvenience of needing to type in individual phone numbers to save a contact on your phone, WhatsApp will be coming up with a new feature that will let you scan a contact’s QR code to add them. Besides that, WhatsApp is introducing several other features in the coming weeks, including animated stickers.
“While our focus remains on providing a simple, reliable and private way for people to chat with friends and family—we also continue to push forward our product design to make sure WhatsApp remains the most useful way for anyone, anywhere to connect,” wrote the communication app on their blog.
Here are the features coming soon in a few weeks:
QR Codes
Previously reported here when there was just a beta version available in iOS, QR codes will officially be available globally to make it easier for everyone to add contacts. If you’d like to get their codes, you can use your ‘Scan’ button on the app. It will open your camera feature in order to scan their QR Code.
Animated stickers
I use stickers constantly with friends and family on WhatsApp, they’re a fun addition to text conversations and we could create personalised ones with our own faces. While the news of animated stickers sound a bit bland on the surface, it could potentially also mean that we could animate personalised stickers as well.
Dark mode for WhatsApp web and desktop
Dark mode for WhatsApp is already available on the mobile phone and the desktop. To access the feature for Whatsapp Web, go to ‘Settings’, then click ‘Theme’. You can them choose the dark theme, and go back to the light theme if you wish.
Users on Android 9 and below can go into WhatsApp ‘Settings’, press ‘Chats’, ‘Theme’, and then selecting ‘Dark’. Users on Android 10 and iOS 13 can use dark mode by enabling it in system settings.
Improvements to group video calls
You might already know about being able to call 7 other people in a WhatsApp group call. With this new update, you can focus on whoever you want by pressing and hold to maximising a participant’s video to full screen.
WhatsApp also added a video icon in group chats of 8 or less, so you can easily start a group video call with 1 tap. The feature is not yet available but is expected to roll out soon.
‘Status’ comes to KaiOS
Users of KaiOS, which is a mobile operating system based on Linux, can now use the feature that lets you share updates that disappear after 24 hours—you know, the one no one really uses in the ‘Status’ section of WhatsApp.
WhatsApp also recently tried out a new payment feature which was being tested in Brazil. Unfortunately, the payment feature has been suspended by Brazil’s Central Bank.
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