As a messaging app grows, it has to balance adding new features and experiences against becoming to complicated. The new addition to the latest WhatsApp beta is highly useful and instantly adopted: improved pinned messages.
As spotted by WABetaInfo, that reliable handbook of all things WhatsApp, the latest beta for Android users has increased how many pinned messages you can have in a chat. Until now, it’s been one. This was useful, for instance so you could pin a message that told you when you were going to the theater or dinner or some other pressing even in your busy life, so it would be easy to find without searching.
Great, but say you had two events coming up with the same people? To pin a second message, you had to unpin the first.
With the new update, which is expected to swap from beta to general release in the coming weeks, you can pin three messages, which should be enough for even the most persistent social gadfly, surely.
As the report explains, “At the moment, it is possible to pin up to three messages. When users attempt to pin a fourth message, WhatsApp automatically removes the oldest message from the pinned messages list. This behavior is enforced to maintain the limit of three pinned messages per chat, but WhatsApp may consider expanding this limit in the future in response to user behavior and feedback.”
The mechanism is simple and indeed it’s convenient that you don’t need to unpin a message: after you’ve added three more, it’ll automatically detach itself from the pinned area.
Would even more be better? Maybe, but three seems the right amount to start with, and much more useful than a single pin.
For sure, the flexibility the three-message-pin adds is welcome. As WABetaInfo succinctly puts it: “Users can now prioritize multiple content, such as important announcements, key reminders, or frequently referenced information, by pinning them at the top of the chat interface. This enhances the overall organization of conversations, making it easier for users to quickly access the most relevant content without having to scroll through the entire chat history multiple times.”
Right now, this new feature is only in beta stage, so, as mentioned, it’s some weeks off at least. And it’s only for Android users, though WhatsApp is good at ensuring such updates are multi-platform, so it will doubtless land for iOS users at the same time as the Android beta goes on general release.
This is not a ground-breaking update, like the forthcoming addition of messages from other services within WhatsApp, but it’s the little things that matter just as much.
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