Users who had signed up for WhatsApp’s beta programme now have access to a new build of the app that brings in some interesting and much-awaited features. The update according to Android Police is tagged as version 2.12.560 and brings a reply button in notifications, adds multiple selections for people or groups and hauls in a new wallpaper selector as well.
The quick reply feature is nothing new, when compared to other messaging platforms such as Hangouts, which already offers something similar. Again, this is a feature that comes from the app and seems to just take advantage of the Android notifications tray.
So how does it work? Upon receiving a message, you can view it in the notifications tray, as usual. What you can now also do is swipe down on the notification to expand it and hit the ‘Reply’ button to launch a pop-up that takes up pretty much the whole screen (talk about non-intrusive). This has more similarities to the standard pop-up notification that been available for long. However, it is not similar to the one we encountered on Android N called Direct Reply, that has more similarities with iOS’ interactive notifications.
In fact this could be a feature that either arrived too late considering that Direct Replies on Android N work system-wide and with all messaging apps; or was intentionally created for those who would not have access to N.
Also available in the same update is the ability to multi-select people or groups. This lets you make multiple selections with a long press and then Archive, Delete, Mute/Unmute, Add chat shortcut, View contact, and Mark (as read/unread) them all at once.
Last but not the least, the WhatsApp team finally got rid of the ageing wallpaper selector that has been with the app since Gingerbread. The new one similar to the one on iOS now allows for some cool-looking solid wallpaper colours, the option to choose from the WhatsApp wallpaper library, gallery and then the usual Default and No Wallpaper options.
For now the update is officially available to beta testers who are a part of the program, indicating that they will eventually (whenever that happens) will roll out to regular users as well. For the rest, you can download the same by heading to the source and then to APK mirror or wait until the same rolls out officially via the Play Store.