Major update WhatsApp finally coming (Communities and more)

The long-awaited update of the popular messaging app WhatsApp is finally here. Read all about Communities, comments and other useful features in this article.

WhatsApp update: Communities and comments

WhatsApp’s parent company, Meta (formerly Facebook), announced the long-awaited new features in a press release. The update should be available in the coming weeks for iPhones running the latest software version.

In this article you can read all about the new features: communities, comments, group admins, file sharing and group calling. Are you reading along?

WhatsApp Communities: this is it

We have already found WhatsApp’s newest feature, Communities, in test versions of the messaging app. With these functions it is possible to bring several groups together and link them to a ‘Community’. According to the press release, this position is aimed at organizations such as schools and (sports) clubs. This allows you to bring together different (existing) WhatsApp groups under one umbrella.

You then send all groups one central message at the same time. So, this Community app gives group admins a lot more control over groups. This way they don’t all have to spam to get along.

An example: create a community for your entire football club. All teams will most likely already have their own group app, but with Communities, they all fall under your club’s community. For example, if the field is frozen and sports are not allowed, you automatically notify all teams with one message.

Other new features after this update

In addition to Communities, WhatsApp has also added other useful features with this update. We have listed these for you:

• Quickly respond to a message with ‘comments’† If you long press a message, WhatsApp will show a row of six emojis above the message for a quick response. The options are thumb, heart, tears (from laughter), open mouth, crying and folded hands. These will be listed below the message.
• Group admins can delete posts† Group admins have the option to delete messages from all members.
• File sharing† The maximum file size for transfers has become 2 GB. Previously this was only 100MB. Photos no longer have to be sent in low quality and you can send large videos more easily.
• Larger Voice Conversations† You can now make one group call with a maximum of 32 people. The design of this telephone function has also been renewed.

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