There is no denying the fact that WhatsApp is world's most popular instant messaging app. When the Coronavirus pandemic affected billions of people across the world, Whatsapp came to the rescue of many as it helped people remain in touch with each other. According to research firm Statista, WhatsApp has 2 billion active users users across the globe by October 2020. India is biggest market of Whatsapp.
For its part, Whatsapp added some new features in the app in 2020 for the benefit of its users. Here are five cool features added by Whatsapp in 2020:
WhatsApp Payments: According to WhatsApp, WhatsApp Payments feature is now available to up to 20 million users in India. WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, said that WhatsApp Payments are now Live with State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank. Whatsapp will also enable the National Payments Corporation of India’s (NPCI) Unified Payment Interface (UPI) system for users to make payments, money transfers and more.
Dark Mode: WhatsApp rolled out the Dark Mode feature earlier this year. The feature was launched for both Android as well as the iPhone. Later, Dark Mode was also rolled out for WhatsApp on the desktop.
Disappearing Messages: Disappearing Messages feature of WhatsApp is now available for all users. This feature allows messages to automatically disappear after a period of 7 days.
WhatsApp Group Video and Voice Calls: During the COVID-19 pandemic, WhatsApp brought a major change in its calling feature as it was updated to include 8 participants, instead of 4. According to WhatsApp, during Coronavirus pandemic users on average were spending over 15 billion minutes talking each day on WhatsApp calls.
Mute Groups forever: A new feature rolled out by WhatsApp allows the users to mute annoying, irritating and hyperactive WhatsApp Groups forever now. The “Always” option in the Mute settings for each group now replaces the 1-year option. The option is available for both Android and iPhone.
