But you know what typically comes with new features? Buttons! And menus. This is why WhatsApp is adding a search feature to its Settings page, but is that truly enough? Well, apparently not, as it may be planning a revamp of its keyboard for the sake of clarity.
As is often the case with WhatsApp related news, this one comes courtesy of WABetaInfo and their expedition through the latest app Beta version (2.23.9.2) for Android. And this one is a bit difficult to explain with words alone, so check out this screenshot first:
The revamp, as shown off by WABetaInfo.
At a glance, it’s difficult to nail down what exactly has changed. So allow me to save you the trouble and list it off:
- The keyboard type selection bar is moved to the top middle portion of the bottom menu
- The menu has been narrowed down to list emojis, gifs and stickers, instead of all the separate emoji categories
Now, just for a bit of context here: the entire bottom portion is called the “WhatsApp keyboard”. This is the custom menu that pops up when you want to send some non-text content, like the ones listed above. That being said, users won’t really be losing out on a ton, as the nifty search function is still there and it already works like a charm. And it works with all sorts of languages too, which is always appreciated.
As is customary with such early beta dive-ins, we don’t really know if this feature will end up on WhatsApp’s live version as seen here or when that may happen to begin with. But it is always great to see that the dev team is still looking for ways to provide clarity to the app.
