05:07 PM
Thursday 26 December 2019
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Books – Ramez Milad:
Facebook-owned WhatsApp is making double efforts to satisfy more than 1.6 billion users worldwide.
During the year 2019, WhatsApp launched about 12 new features to improve the user experience, according to the Arab Portal for Technical News, the most prominent of which are: support lock and open the application with fingerprint or face recognition, and more.
The new features introduced by WhatsApp were as follows:
1- Restrict the number of recipients of shared messages:
As part of its efforts to fight misinformation and rumors spreading about its application, WhatsApp decided to reduce the maximum number of users who can forward messages to only 5 people, after WhatsApp users had previously been able to forward messages to 20 individuals or groups.
2- Lock the application with fingerprint or eye:
This feature is intended for all types of phones to support the ability to lock and open the application with a fingerprint, or face recognition, depending on the technology supported by your iPhone.
3- Ban on users of unofficial applications:
On March 13, WhatsApp announced a ban on anyone using an app other than its official app, to push users to avoid using unsupported external apps.
4- Prevent you from being added to groups without your permission:
This feature helps the user to decide who can add to groups. To solve this one of its worst problems that users have suffered for years is adding them to groups without their consent, and then having to leave them.
If you enable the new setting, the administrator who wants to add you to a group will be asked to send a private invitation through individual chat, allowing you to choose to join the group, and you will have 3 days to accept the invitation before it expires.
5- Introducing WhatsApp Business app for iPhone:
On April 4, WhatsApp launched its WhatsApp Business app for iOS users. This app targets small businesses looking for a fast and efficient way to communicate with their customers.
Unlike the regular WhatsApp app, this version allows business owners and companies to set up a business profile to share details such as: email, store address, and website.
6- Label (Frequently Forwarded Messages):
On August 3, WhatsApp announced the roll-out of the ‘forwarded messages’ label in its Android and iOS operating system, with the goal of letting users know if the message they received had been forwarded more than 5 times, to avoid spreading rumors and fake news on the app.
7- Share the status with other applications:
On September 22, WhatsApp launched a new feature called “Share to Facebook Story”, which allows users to share status posts on Facebook.
8- A new update for iOS users:
This updated version includes two main changes: the number of unread alerts for silent conversations is not displayed, which means that if a new message comes in a silent chat, the application icon will not display the alert icon, and the change applies to both individual and group chats.
And second, a major change in the group’s privacy settings related to who can add the user to groups of contacts.
9- Improving the feature of adding groups:
On November 6, WhatsApp launched a new option that allows users to block specific contacts from adding them to groups.
10- Catalog feature in WhatsApp Business app:
On November 7, WhatsApp launched a new feature to the business version called Catalogs to facilitate customer product recognition and enable business owners to promote their products.
11- New Android update:
On November 13, WhatsApp launched a beta version of its app, No. 2.19.328 for the Android operating system, and includes a change in the shape of the camera icon that has become similar to the Instagram logo, in addition to fixing a bug that caused the application to crash while listening to voice messages.
12- Call waiting feature:
On November 26, WhatsApp launched a new update to its iPhone application that includes a number of features, including: call waiting, a new chat screen design to facilitate the reading of messages, and with VoiceOver mode, blind users can now send a message directly from a language keyboard ( Braille).
In December, the company launched an update to its Android operating system that includes call waiting.
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