What you need to know
- Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and WhatsApp CEO Will Cathcart have confirmed a few new features coming to WhatsApp in the near future.
- WhatsApp is working on improving its disappearing messages feature by adding a new "disappearing" and "view once" modes.
- The duo also confirmed that WhatsApp plans to roll out multi-device in a public beta within the next two months.
WhatsApp CEO Will Cathcart and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg have shed light on some of the new features coming to the messaging app in an 'unexpected' group chat with WABetaInfo.
Zuckerberg told WABetaInfo that its best Android messaging app will soon gain a new "disappearing mode," which will turn on disappearing messages in all your chat threads. Currently, WhatsApp lets you turn on disappearing messages only for individual chat threads. Another privacy-focused feature that will be rolled out soon is "view once," allowing users to send content that will automatically disappear after the person views it. Similar to disappearing messages, however, "view once" will not prevent the recipient from taking a screenshot before the photo or video disappears. The feature is likely to begin rolling to users over the coming weeks.
As for multi-device support, Will Cathcart told WABetaInfo that "it's been a big technical challenge to get all your messages and content to sync properly across devices even when your phone battery dies." However, the issue has now been solved, and the feature will be rolled out in a public beta within the next two months. Just as you would expect, all your messages will still be end-to-end encrypted when using WhatsApp on multiple devices.
Interestingly, Cathcart also confirmed that multi-device support would finally allow users to use the app on iPads. As revealed by previous leaks, the feature will allow you to link up to 4 devices to your WhatsApp account. You will be able to continue chatting with friends on your other devices even when your phone isn't connected to the internet.
