2019 was a busy year for WhatsApp, the world’s most popular virtual messenger. We haven’t had as many crashes and bugs as in other years, but in return some new features have come into the app, such as call waiting and fingerprint unlocking.
Despite rumors earlier this year, Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram were not merged into one colossal social app. However, the app’s parent company has sparked controversy by adding its name to the messenger splash screen, and certainly this may indicate some other changes within the Mark Zuckerberg ecosystem.
But what will come to WhatsApp in 2020? Surely you have seen a lot here at Teknologya, yet we decided to gather what are the most anticipated news in the program for next year.
Coming Soon to @WhatsApp…
– WhatsApp Status (Stories) to get Ads in 2020
– WhatsApp for Businesses to get richer messaging format options
– WhatsApp product catalog to be integrated with existing Facebook Business Manager catalog
h/t + 📸 @Olivier_Ptv
at #FMS19 pic.twitter.com/Z5LsbADNbP— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) May 21, 2019
See below:
Dark mode
Dark mode should finally reach WhatsApp by 2020. The beta version of the app already has codes that indicate that this news should come to everyone soon. Also, one of the surprises within this update would be a dark mode aimed at AMOLED displays, which would save even more battery power.
Another interesting point is that you can manually activate the dark mode or make it appear automatically when the phone is in power save mode.
Temporary messages
Another feature we have been waiting for some time is the ability to create messages that will be automatically deleted after a short time. Many rival messaging apps already offer this and we know that WhatsApp has been working for some time on this feature, which aims to improve the privacy of conversations.
The feature was originally known as “Message Disappearance” but is now being called “Delete Messages”. Based on the evidence from the WhatsApp Beta installation files, it appears that messages can be automatically deleted after an hour, a day, a week, a month, or a year.
In-app purchases and advertising
Not that this is big news, but WhatsApp is working to improve WhatsApp Business. The idea is to make the system smarter and more agile, and make it easier for customers to make purchases more clearly and objectively.
As for the ads, Facebook unveiled at the 2019 Facebook Marketing Summit in the Netherlands a slide show demonstrating how it intends to display them on WhatsApp. In the beginning, they should appear on status posts, with full-screen promotions that will appear between your contact updates.
These ads may be linked to companies’ ability to receive payments on WhatsApp, allowing them to effectively run entire stores there.
Goodbye old phones
WhatsApp should stop supporting many older Android and iOS devices from February 1, 2020.
As explained in the app FAQ, devices with operating systems earlier than Android 2.3.7 or iOS 8 will lose access to the program after the date. Essentially, this means that if you have an iPhone 4 or older or an Android device prior to 2011 (like the Google Nexus One or the original Samsung Galaxy S), you won’t be able to install WhatsApp from the App Store or Play Store.
There is no exact date yet, but, depending on user pressure, this may be delayed until the middle of the year.
Source of images
According to the folks at WABetaInfo, one of the new features coming to WhatsApp in 2020 may be a reverse image search tool that will help you discover the source of an image you received.
The purpose behind this feature is to help contain the spread of Fake News, as well as the frequent routing that incidentally gained a new additive in India: it is now possible to find out if a message or image has been routed more than five times. The resource, by the way, should be expanded to everyone by 2020.
Source: TechRadar