Articles about WhatsApp

If you are a seasoned user of WhatsApp, brace yourself for a blast from the past. The company has just announced that it is bringing back one of its earliest features in a new and improved form.

What is returning is the About feature, a simple text field that can be used to share information about yourself, your availability, or anything else you can think of. It is not entirely dissimilar to the Notes feature of Instagram.

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The wide range of messaging apps now available is great in terms of choice, but it also means that you almost certainly have contacts scattered across a number of different platforms. In turn, this means that you have had to install a large number of app in order to ensure that you are able to contact everyone that you need to.

But this could soon be changing for WhatsApp users. Several years ago, there were various messaging apps that could be used to conduct cross-platform chats, so you could use one app instead of several. This looks to be the direction in which WhatsApp is heading.

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After years of requests, WhatsApp is finally, fully available on Apple Watch. The app gives users access to many of the core messaging functions found on the phone version, including reading and responding to chats, recording and sending voice messages, and viewing photos and stickers.

The new app will allow users to check messages, respond with quick replies, and listen to or send voice notes directly through the watch. If you rely on WhatsApp to stay in touch with friends, family or work, you can now use it while on a run, during a commute, or in situations where using a phone isn’t possible.

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WhatsApp has been working on a username feature for what feels like forever, with information gradually slipping out about how this much-requested option will work. There are various reasons for wanting usernames, not least of which is that it just makes sense because it is how just about every other social networking or messaging platform works.

We have already heard from Meta that it believes usernames will help to improve security, and now the latest beta version of the Android app shows us more. Specifically, this latest release shows us how it will be possible to search by username and place calls without the need to know someone’s phone number.

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Online scams are nothing new, but there are now more channels through which they can be run. Among them are social platforms like WhatsApp and Messenger, and it is sad fact that older users are more likely to fall victim

This is precisely why Meta is rolling out a new system of warnings that appear in its messaging apps. The aim is to make users think twice about who they connect to and who they share information with as part of Cybersecurity Awareness Month.

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The adoption of business messaging channels has increased by 53 percent in just one year, driven by AI agents and LLM-powered automation.

A report from respond.io shows small and medium-sized businesses are increasingly engaging customers through platforms like WhatsApp, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger.

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Like email, SMS, and just about every other method of communication, WhatsApp suffers from spam. There are certainly things that can be done by users to stem the flow of spam that makes its way to their inboxes, but WhatsApp is also trying to help.

The platform has already introduced a system designed to automatically detect and block spam, but it is not perfect; no system is. And so, WhatsApp is trying another approach that will apply to businesses and individuals alike.

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It has been known for a little while that Meta has been working on a username system for WhatsApp. The popular messaging app is slightly unusual in not offering people a way to choose a username, but this is going to change at some point in the future.

Recent beta builds of the iOS and Android apps show that work is gathering paced, and the most recent development is a username reservation system. This will serve as a way for users to try to pre-select their preferred username even before the username system rolls out to everyone.

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WhatsApp has announced the launch of message translations after years of requests from users. Gone are the days of copying and pasting foreign language text into a translation too – everything is now taken care of in the app.

The aim is to allow for easy communication, wiping out language barriers. This is something that can benefit users having one-to-one chats, but it is also helpful in group chats where two or more languages may be in use. For now, it is something that is rolling out to Android and iOS users, and users with Android devices have access to a unique extra feature.

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So much communication takes place on WhatsApp – both personal and business – that it is all too easy to lose track of things that have been said. Just about everyone will recognize the scenario in which someone they have been chatting with asks if they’ve followed up on that thing from last week, only to have the crashing realization that you’d completely forgotten.

To help combat this, WhatsApp is experimenting with a simple idea – message reminders. This feature is currently undergoing testing with some users of the iOS version of the app. Here is how it can help you.

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WhatsApp is a near-ubiquitous messaging app used and loved by millions of people globally. Its popularity does not mean, however, that it is perfect – there are many areas in which there is room for improvement.

Thankfully, WhatsApp developers are not inclined to rest on their laurels and add features, make changes and improvements, and respond to feedback with speed and frequency that puts other dev teams to shame. The latest addition is a welcome one: threaded messaging.

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Read receipts in WhatsApp are getting an upgrade. The two-tick system that appears below the sent message is loved and hated; yes, it lets you know that a message is sending, that it has been received, and that it has been read – but why is there no response now you know that it has been read!?

Putting aside concerns about why someone may be ignoring you, themes in WhatsApp which change the color of the messaging app can be problematic. If you’d become used to read receipts having blue check marks, the fact that some themes changed that had the potential for confusion. Now WhatsApp is addressing this.

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The inescapability of AI continues, and Meta is at the forefront. WhatsApp has already liberally coated itself in features driven by artificial intelligence, and now there are more.

This time around, things are fairly innocuous. The chat platform has now added the option of using AI backgrounds within video chats.

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WhatsApp has addressed a serious security flaw in certain versions of its app. The vulnerability was a zero-click exploit, which the company says was being used to target specific users.

No details have been provided about those who were being targeted, so it is not clear whether they are celebrities, people linked to businesses, or something else. What is interesting, however, is the fact that it was Apple users who had been single out.

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WhatsApp is getting another injection of artificial intelligence in the form of Writing Help. As you would guess from the name, this is a tool designed to help you come up with the perfect message for different scenarios.

With Writing Help being billed as something that could be of assistance in all manner of communication, there will be understandable concerns about privacy. WhatsApp is one step ahead of worried users here, pointing out that Writing Help is built on top of Private Processing technology.

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