Its History lesson 101 today ladies and gentlemen so grab your notebooks, I wish to explain a couple of things here and there.
Basically, the only way to respond to a message/text on WhatsApp in the present is by sending a follow-up text. Moving on…you can also reply with an audio message or make an online call.
On other social media platforms such as; Instagram, Twitter, Facebook Messenger, iMessages, Signal and Slack, you have an option of reacting to incoming messages using Emojis without actually sending someone a follow-up message.
Things are about change in the near future however as WhatsApp looks to have caught up with its competitors on this subject with multiple rumors now suggesting the company has developed a similar feature that allows users to quickly respond to incoming messages.
WhatsApp is rolling out its newest feature in phases
The new feature was first uncovered by reliable WhatsApp news leaker – WABetaInfo who revealed the update has been in the pipeline for sometime now but there’s a catch to it. It’s not available for everyone just yet and has only been released to a handful of people running the latest Android Beta version 2.22.8.3 of the messaging app.
Aside from appearing on Android, there are signs the emoji reactions feature is also making its way to WhatsApp’s iOS and desktop applications. Looking into a recent WhatsApp Desktop Beta version 2.2210.1 released just last week and WhatsApp Beta 22.2.72 for iOS released in January, both betas have a settings toggle for managing (configuring) “Reaction Notifications,” although the emoji message reactions are not yet available in either of them.
According to WABetaInfo, users can choose from six reactions namely; Like, Love, Laugh, Surprised, Sad and Thanks. So if you’re using Telegram, Discord or Slack among others, I’m guessing you already know how this works.
NOTE: Any Beta version of WhatsApp is a development version (unfinished product) of the application itself and not the official, stable one you and I use on a daily basis. It’s only available to Beta testers.
There’s no indication whether this new feature is limited to individual chats or group chats or whether it will be present in both chat categories.
How does it work?
Just double-tap on the incoming text you’ve received to bring up the emoji reactions and select whichever you want.
An addition that joins the endless list of new features recently introduced to WhatsApp
This is just among the many add-ons to come to the messaging platform, we’ve already seen countless more updates integrated into the service in the past year or so. For example, other notable additions include; Code Verify – a web extension that checks the version/validity of the WhatsApp Web App a person uses when accessing the messaging service via the internet.
The ability to transfer your entire chat history from Android to iOS and vice versa (from iOS to Android) is also another add-on we’ve witnessed in recent months.
Is it available for all WhatsApp users?
There are no guarantees as to when the “Message Reactions” feature becomes available to everyone. As I earlier mentioned, the company is first testing it with a small number of users (beta testers) to find and fix any bugs or potential issues and then release it for all users, so a final launch date maybe isn’t too far away.
NOTE: You’ll need to have the latest WhatsApp version installed on your device when this feature rolls out for you to use it.
Have your say
Will you use Message Reactions after it becomes official for everyone? Or are you satisfied with the way you normally respond to incoming notifications? Let me know in the “comments” section or on our social media handles.
