WhatsApp Status updates tab has begun rolling out to users, the Facebook owned Instant Messaging platform has announced today. We reported about this feature, which was leaked a few months ago.
The addition comes in time with WhatsApp's 8th birthday, which happens to fall on February 24th.
Now, coming to the new feature, you will be able to click a picture or shoot a video, and share it as your Status, with your WhatsApp friends and contacts. If this sounds similar to Snapchat and Instagram Stories, that's because it is. There are a few privacy settings for WhatsApp’s new Status tab, which allows you to show status updates to all your contacts, all contacts except the ones you select, or to be seen only be the people you select.
The good news is that update status updates are end-to-end encrypted, just like normal conversations.The bad news is, that some users have reported that the new WhatsApp status update, replaces the previous normal status option. And not only that, the Contacts screen seems to have been removed as well, which is actually a terrible move. WhatsApp is slowly becoming similar to Facebook's social network, which we are not sure will be very well received.
The WhatsApp Status tab seems to be a server end update, so you don't have to manually update the app to get it. It is not live for us, even in the beta channel. The new feature is available for both Android and iOS.
via: WhatsApp Blog