WhatsApp has announced a collection of new features that will arrive on Facebook’s proprietary messaging service in the coming weeks. We’ve already heard of some of them, such as QR codes, which can be used to quickly add new contacts or animated stickers, thanks to their appearance in WhatsApp beta versions. But now their existence is official, and we know that they will soon be out of beta.
Being able to add contacts via the QR code is one of the most interesting features on the list, as it means you can quickly add a new contact by quickly scanning the code instead of having to enter your full phone number. Group video calls are also being adjusted to allow you to quickly maximize video feed for any one of up to eight participants in a call, and a new video icon will also be added to group chats of up to eight people to allow you to quickly start a video call group first
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Meanwhile, the animated stickers are very similar to the service’s current stickers, only with simple animations added, and there’s also a new dark mode for the service’s desktop and web clients to match the dark mode that was released in their mobile apps earlier this year. Finally, if you are using WhatsApp on a KaiOS smartphone like Nokia 2720 Flip, you can now use WhatsApp’s story style status feature.
WhatsApp says that the dark mode for the web and the status function for KaiOS are live now and that the video maximization function will be out in this week’s update. QR codes, animated stickers and the new group call button will arrive in the coming weeks.
