WhatsApp’s Ground-Breaking New Feature

 WhatsApp reportedly working on a New feature 

 

WhatsApp is about to change out of all recognition. Thanks to the Digital Markets Act, coming into force in the EU in March 2024, the messaging app is opening up to third parties. WhatsApp recently announced a new feature for its users, Accidental Delete, which is aimed at protecting users in tricky situations wherein they have sent a message to the wrong person or group and accidentally clicked on 'Delete for me' instead of 'Delete for everyone'. The Meta-owned messaging platform now is reportedly working on another useful feature. And a new report says that it’s coming sooner than many analysts had expected.

The company is reportedly working on a feature which will enable users to select multiple chats on WhatsApp Desktop. According to a reports available, the platform which tracks changes in WhatsApp build, has announced that the messaging app will soon enable users to select multiple chats on WhatsApp Desktop version. Currently, the feature is in the testing phase on WhatsApp Desktop beta. While it was known that the DMA would arrive in early March, WhatsApp hadn’t said anything about when it would comply. In the DMA, WhatsApp was declared a gatekeeper app, whose significant influence meant that it had to open things up. This was understood to mean that the app would add separate inboxes for different messaging apps.

So, if someone was messaging you through Messenger, Signal or even Apple iMessage, WhatsApp had to provide the capability for the message to show up in WhatsApp. Oh, joy, no more wracking your brain to remember which service your friends prefer, it would come to WhatsApp automatically. It was also noted, "the ability to select multiple chats is a feature under development and it will be released in a future update of WhatsApp Desktop beta. We’re not sure when it will be released but as always, we’re going to post an additional article on this website when further details about this feature are available."

Now, according to reports widely available, these game-changing updates are on their way. Here’s what is being said, and reading between the lines, it’s telling us something quite surprising:-

“The Digital Markets Act (DMA) targets large tech companies who heavily influence the digital market, requiring them to facilitate user communication across multiple apps. Since it is required by law, WhatsApp must offer support for third-party chats to their European Region users. Thanks to the latest WhatsApp beta for Android 2.24.5.18 update, which is available on the Google Play Store, we discovered that WhatsApp is working on the chat interoperability feature!”

That’s especially interesting because much of the focus of the DMA has been on the iPhone, but it’s the Google version of WhatsApp that is showing these changes coming soon. Presently, WhatsApp allows users to report messages and contacts to WhatsApp in case they think there is a violation of their Terms of Service. When you report a contact, the last 5 messages in the conversation are forwarded to WhatsApp, but you can also choose to report specific messages. In previous report, upcoming feature revealed the possibility to report a status update right within a new menu in the status section. "Note that this feature does not break end-to-end encryption, as claimed by last year due to misunderstanding since messages, voice calls, media, location sharing, calls and status updates, are protected by the end-to-end encryption protocol on all of your devices: it means that nobody, not even WhatsApp and Meta, can see the content of your messages and listen to your private calls, but it is important to bring a report option to keep the platform and other people safe," adds the report.

WhatsApp will let users choose what to do. The screen says, “You’re messaging someone outside of WhatsApp. Third-party apps may use different end-to-end encryption.” It also warns that other apps “may handle your data differently.” There’s great convenience available this way. “This move towards interoperability is a significant step for WhatsApp in aligning with EU regulations and providing users with more versatile communication options. Users in the European Region will be able to chat with others on WhatsApp using various messaging apps, even if they don’t have a WhatsApp account.”

The report further adds that the feature is in the developmental stage and is expected to soon release for WhatsApp Desktop users. But soon, it seems, WhatsApp is going to change radically, and will never quite be the same again.