Whatsapp New Features: Landscape Mode, Chat Transfer, 15-People in Group Calls and More
WhatsApp is rolling out new features and enhancements that have been highly anticipated by users. These include the ability to transfer chats from one phone to another, use landscape mode, and more.
Landscape mode support for video calls
Meta-owned messaging platform is widely rolling out landscape mode support for video calls, silence unknown callers option and more, on iOS. “Video calls now support landscape mode,” the company mentioned in the official changelog. Also, users can now silence unknown callers by going to Settings – Privacy – Calls.
The platform is also rolling out the ability to natively transfer full account history when switching to a new device. This functionality can be accessed by navigating to Settings – Chats – Transfer Chats to iPhone. Redesigned sticker tray with improved navigation and a larger set of stickers including more Avatars are also rolling out with the new update. All these features will roll out over the coming weeks, the company said.
Group calls with up to 15 people
Meanwhile, last week, it was reported that the company was rolling out a feature on iOS beta, which allows users to initiate group calls with up to 15 people.
Group calls already support up to 32 participants, but it was only possible to initiate a group call with up to 7 people. However, with the new feature, beta users can now initiate group calls with up to 15 people.
High-quality videos
Earlier this month, the company was reportedly rolling out a feature on iOS beta, which allows users to send high-quality videos. While this feature preserves video dimensions, minor compression will still be applied to the video, thus sending videos in their original quality is not possible.
The default option will always be ‘Standard quality’ for all videos, therefore, users have to select the high-quality option every time they want to send a video with better quality.
A tag will be added to the message bubble when sending a video with the high-quality option to inform the recipient that the video is sent using this feature.
Migrate chats from Android to IOS
Meta-owned messaging platform WhatsApp has announced that it now allows users to transfer their chat history from Android to iOS and vice versa for all users.
WhatsApp mentioned that if users are moving from an Android phone to an iPhone, they can transfer their account information, profile photo, individual chats, group chats, chat history, media, and settings. However, users cannot transfer their call history or display name.
Recently, the company said that iPhone users can migrate their WhatsApp data using the ‘Move to iOS’ app. By downloading the ‘Move to iOS’ app on their Android phone, users can use it to transfer the things they care about most, including contacts, messages, photos, videos, email accounts, calendars, and now WhatsApp message history from their Android phone to iPhone.
Translucent bars
Earlier this month, the messaging platform was widely rolling out a tweaked interface that features translucent bars- tab bar and navigation bar-, on iOS The Meta-owned platform was also rolling out a redesigned sticker and GIF picker on iOS.
Wear OS smartwatches
Now Wear OS users can start new conversations, reply to messages, and take calls from their wrist. Meta CEO and Founder Zuckerberg announced the first WhatsApp smartwatch app is now available on Wear OS. Available on watches that run Wear OS 3, users will no longer need their phone with them to stay connected, and can respond to friends and family using their voice, emojis, quick replies or text.
.@WhatsApp is now available globally on #WearOS! 💚 🌏
— Wear OS by Google (@WearOSbyGoogle) July 19, 2023
Start new chats, reply to messages by voice and answer calls from your watch – safely and securely. 🔒
Download it here on Google Play: https://t.co/y2eGfMAwGy pic.twitter.com/vUMy1T7fSn
“We look forward to bringing WhatsApp to even more devices in the future,” said the company.
The users will also be able to respond with voice messages, emoji, regular text, and quick replies. If they have an LTE-capable Wear OS 3 watch, they will even be able to respond to messages without the smartphone nearby.
