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Whatsapp

WhatsApp ending legacy support this year

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Making good on its promise from early last year, WhatsApp will be pulling the plug on supporting older Operating Systems and devices starting this year. However, the plan to drop support for Nokia S40, Nokia Symbian S60, Blackberry 10 and Blackberry OS has been delayed with the company extending its support into 2017.

The app has gone through a variety of changes over the years with one of the major additions being enabling end to end encryption on chats. Others have included text formatting, document sharing, WhatsApp desktop, Video calling support to name a few.

With over a billion users recorded back in February 2016, odds are that the popular messaging app won’t work on quite a number of old smartphones.

The confirmed list includes the following:
Devices running on Android 2.1, Android 2.2
Device running on Windows Phone 7
Devices running iOS 6 or below
iPhone 3GS

WhatsApp video calling is available in beta

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WhatsApp has finally integrated video calling into an update for Android on Google Play Store. However, users can only access it if they are using the beta version. Video calling and audio calls have been in the works for a while in the WhatsApp labs with GIF support introduced recently.

Tapping the call button now displays a popup asking the user whether a video call or voice call needs to be made. Video calling further has 3 options including call mute, sending text message and camera switch. A minor but interesting change to the installation screen is it has been updated to match Android Marshmallow and the ancient holo interface has been ditched for good.

Video calls can be done only if a user enrolls into the beta program from the Google Play Store. Of course, the user on the other end also needs to be using the beta version.

WhatsApp adds end-to-end encryption to latest version

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WhatsApp has now added an end-to-end encryption to all of its messages, which would come as good news amidst growing concerns about security and privacy. The latest version of the app uses secure technology ensuring that messages can’t be intercepted such that only the recipient and sender can read them.

While the move has been lauded by security professionals, law enforcement officials are not so keen on it, citing the difficulty that this would pose in protecting the public.

This blanket encryption is not only limited to messages, but also covers voice calls and file transfers. The setting is enabled by default in the programme, joining the likes of Telegram, another app with end-to-end encryption.

[Via WhatsApp Blog]

Latest WhatsApp update introduces text formatting

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After adding document sharing, the latest WhatsApp update brings with it text formatting for messages.

Users can now bold and italicise message text, something which has been requested for quite a while. To make text bold it must be added in-between two *asterisks* and for italics it needs to be in the middle of two _underscores_. The feature is not only limited to messages but also works with notification alerts. The name of the sender is marked in bold and the message formatting is preserved in the preview.

Currently, the update can be only be downloaded from the official website link. The WhatsApp tester program grants access to the beta version available on the Google Play store.

WhatsApp adds support for document sharing

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The oft-requested feature of document sharing has finally been introduced to WhatsApp. Currently, only PDF files can be shared on iOS and Android while it is still forthcoming on Windows.

Files can also be shared from a large selection of cloud storage sites like Dropbox, Google Drive and iCloud. Both users need to have the latest version of the app to share files with each other. File transfer is protected by end-to-end encryption just like the chats. After a document is shared, WhatsApp displays the file preview including the page count, file size and type.

The addition of the document sharing icon has had the effect of combining both Photo and Video sharing options into one Camera icon instead.

WhatsApp has been gradually rolling out a slew of features focusing on attracting more businesses towards the service.