WhatsApp has recently been joined by Facebook Messenger in the 1 billion fan club. This is just to say that the two have an individual following of more than 1 billion people from all over the world, something that is rare to achieve in the current highly competitive setup.
One thing that makes WhatsApp successful is the fact that the company rolls out regular updates with new features every now and then. In fact, the Android version receives up to three updates in a week, which is unusual, but somehow expected for an app that has such a huge user base. The weekly updates sometimes don’t bring new features, instead, they only take care of bugs and fixes as well as improving the functionality of other features already on board.
As for those on iOS, updates are always available, but they don’t come in at the same pace as what happens with Android. In fact, the latest update has a lot to do with Apple iPhone users. Coming in at WhatsApp 2.16.7, the update brings a bunch of new features to the iOS platform, features that you must upgrade to the newest version in order to enjoy.
In the updated version, users will now be able to send large emojis as well as zoom in and out when in the middle of video recording. When you send a single emoji, it will now appear as one large emoji. However, adding more emojis will steadily decrease the size displayed. As for the zooming part, all you need is start recording a video from within the app and by sliding your finger up and down, you will be able to zoom in and out of the video being recorded.
As usual with every update, you can also expect performance improvements, with the company being specific that this version’s chats load faster than before. The other update that this new WhatsApp version brings to the iPhone is the ability to carry out bulk actions. This has been available on Android for quite some time now but is only making its way to the iOS platform. When you hit Edit located on the Chats tab, you will now be able to select multiple chats and apply actions such as delete, mark as read, mark as unread or archive.
The new WhatsApp v2.16.7 free download should be rolling out now, but if you haven’t enabled auto-updates for your apps, you may want to check the iTunes App Store for the latest version. The update is slightly weighty for an app, which stands at 73.4MB, so make sure you have enough data to take care of this, otherwise, get a Wi-Fi connection.
iOS users can also be able to take advantage of a new font style on WhatsApp. To change the appearance of words, sandwich the phrase or sentence between three grave accent characters (“`) on either side before sending it to a friend.