WhatsApp messenger is the most popular IM app for Android and other smartphones.
You can send messages or make calls to other WhatsApp users by using your phones’ mobile data or Wi-Fi connection. You can also send videos, documents, photos and voice messages. There is no subscription fee to download and use WhatsApp on your smartphone. WhatsApp offers a group-chat feature, wherein a group can be created and contacts from your phone can be added to the group. All the participants of the group can chat, share messages, media and stay in touch together.
What’s new?
The new WhatsApp version 2.16.15 for Android based smartphones is 27.6 MB in size. It requires a minimum version of Android OS 2.1 and above. It’s a BETA update for Android applications. It offers new features in addition to fixing the existing bugs.
End-to-end encryption: WhatsApp has implemented its latest feature of full “end-to-end encryption” to improve the privacy and security of the user’s chats and media that has been shared over. It was promised by WhatsApp a year ago, it is finally out now. All this time, encryption was only for messages and chats. Now it has been extended to voice calls, documents, media etc. This encryption means that from now on, any chat, message, photos, videos or documents and media will be visible and accessible only to the sender and the receiver. No third party will be able to read the contents of the chat and message. Even WhatsApp will not be able to access any information from the user. This is because the message will get encrypted and secured with a lock and only the sender and receiver of the message will have access to it with a specific security key.
Since this feature is all about securing messages, any court order looking for access to conversations or content, shall not be complied. In the updated versions, a small yellow pop-up with a lock icon appears with the message “Messages you send to this chat and calls are now secured with end-to-end encryption. Tap for more info.”
However, if in a group chat, even if one user is using an old version of WhatsApp, that doesn’t support the new feature of encryption, then the whole conversation in the group will not be encrypted.
Font formatting: Tired of using the same style of fonts while chatting using WhatsApp? Here is the solution to it. The new version of WhatsApp has introduced features where you can change the font styles to bold, italics and to apply strikethrough. For bold fonts, you will need to add an asterisk before and after the word. For example, *Hello* will become Hello when you send the message. Similarly, for italics, you will need to add underscore before and after the word i.e., _Hello_ , which will become Hello, once it is sent. To apply strikethrough, you will need to add a tilde before and after the word (~Hello~) and once the message is sent, the strikethrough will appear on the word. These features are available only on versions which are app-based.
Editing photos: Who does not want to have a great picture of theirs sent across to others! An existing picture is always touched up using so many tools to make it a perfect photograph. WhatsApp’s new version has added features of rotating pictures and allows cropping the photos before sending it out to other users. Though this is just a small step as of now; it is expected to be improvised with the addition of other features to filmstrip and photo editor in WhatsApp.