As the latest Android version — Android 9 Pie has already made its way to the Pixel family, WhatsApp now seems to have started testing its support for new MessagingStyle inline images for the notification panel, according to Android Police.
Photo: Android Police
While this feature is not something new, but it will now support a new format where one can expand and collapse inline images. The rest of the text messages and images will still show up in the notification panel, however, this feature doesn't work with GIFs or videos. You won't get a preview of them and they will still keep showing up as a small icon, notifying the user that they have received it. Furthermore, group images can also be expanded for preview, but upon collapsing the preview, it will shift to the right side with the group icon next to it.
The messaging platform is testing this feature in the beta channel, spotted in Android beta v2.18.291. This feature will only work on smartphones running on the latest Android 9 Pie.
According to WABetaInfo, WhatsApp has also added a new sticker pack called Biscuit, to make the platform more engaging. It is yet to be rolled out to the users and is disabled by default for now. This new set of stickers has been the most popular stickers in the Facebook Messenger for a while now, which now seems to make its debut on WhatsApp soon.
Separately, WhatsApp is also said to be working on a 'Swipe to Reply' feature for Android, that will allow users to quickly reply to a message using a swipe gesture. The Facebook-owned company is also working on Dark Mode feature for both Android and iOS, as per WABetaInfo.
Besides, WhatsApp recently announced that it will stop supporting iPhones that are running on iOS 7 or older from February 1, 2020. Users who have already installed the WhatsApp app on the iPhone can continue using the instant messaging application till the above-mentioned date.
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