WhatsApp launched a brand new Chat Lock characteristic for its Android and iOS customers in Could 2023. Nonetheless, the characteristic was not rolled out for its Net shopper. Lastly, after an extended wait, a brand new report means that the moment messaging platform can be working to carry the characteristic to WhatsApp Net. Earlier, it was reported that Net customers would additionally get a redesigned sidebar. Now, a leaked picture of the Chat Lock characteristic exhibits a devoted icon being positioned on the brand new sidebar.
In keeping with a report by WABetaInfo, WhatsApp is engaged on bringing the Chat Lock characteristic to permit customers to lock particular person chat on the internet shopper and place it behind an extra layer of safety. That is useful in case you don’t want others to learn about a specific dialog or wish to ship delicate info. The leaked picture exhibits a padlock icon subsequent to the Archived Chats and Starred Messages icon. This has led to the hypothesis that the locked messages will characteristic inside this tab, and a second layer of safety may be added to entry the tab.
Since there aren’t any stories on how this characteristic will perform, particulars about it are usually not out there. Nonetheless, the Android and iOS counterpart makes use of passcode, fingerprint, and Face ID authentication as enter to unlock the chats. On the Net shopper, passwords and even passkeys, a passwordless authentication technique that lets customers log in with biometrics, can be utilized for this objective.
Other than this, WhatsApp Net can be anticipated to get a redesigned sidebar and a brand new color scheme for the darkish theme. An earlier report acknowledged that the color change was achieved to scale back eye pressure in low-light environments, whereas the brand new sidebar was added to create design symmetry throughout all the firm’s platforms.
WhatsApp can be planning a number of new options for its cellular purposes. For iOS, WhatsApp is reportedly engaged on including help for passkeys, which was beforehand added to its Android counterpart. All iPhone fashions working on iOS 17 are anticipated to help third-party entry to passkeys. This implies iPhone XR or newer fashions with the iOS 17 replace can be the one ones to activate passkeys on the WhatsApp app.
On Android, the Meta-owned app is engaged on a close-by file-sharing characteristic, as per a separate report. That is anticipated to work equally to Android’s Fast Share (beforehand referred to as Close by Share) characteristic. The WhatsApp characteristic seems to let customers set themselves to be seen to different close by customers with out revealing their telephone quantity to non-contacts. It’s also anticipated to be end-to-end encrypted to take care of privateness.