We've all been a victim of that “on the way” lie when the
person in question is still in bed. To prevent yourself from ever
getting duped again, insist that the contact shares their current
location with you by tapping on the arrow icon next to the text box and
then Share Location. There's also a way of preventing them from manually
entering their l
How: The way the location appears is a
clue. If it’s a real GPS-based location, the location share will appear
as a dropped pin, but if it’s a location they entered, its address will
appear beside the dropped pin. Feel free to call them out on it.
As WhatsApp becomes the go-to chat app for more and more
people, the likelihood of making group decisions gets carried over as
well. So if you’re always getting added to new group chats filled with
strangers (you social butterfly, you), you might want to keep certain
details private until those strangers become friends. How: Head to Settings, Privacy, and then tweak your
Last Seen, Profile Photo and Status to retain a bit of mystery. Choose
to share them with Everyone, or only your Contacts, or Nobody at all.
Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do about hiding your phone
number.
9. Mute group chats
We’re all in at least a few group chats at any one time,
created because someone (likely the group admin) was bored. People tend
to get overzealous in chats, especially since WhatsApp allows group
conversations of up to 50 participants. Who hasn’t woken up to the
horror of 100+ unread messages fuelled by a night of boredom? How: To prevent yourself from being woken up by the
constant lighting up of your smartphone screen, you can (a) either flip
yourphone over and ignore it or (b) Mute the offending group chat. Tap
on the group chat of your choice, then the name to bring up Group Info
where you will find the option to Mute the chat for eight hours to one
week or a year. Alternatively, you can exit it altogether.
10. Staying selectively notified
Not all group chats are created equal, as some are filled with
nothing but white noise. And it’s exactly those group chats you want to
ignore until you get some down time to sieve through everything that’s
been said. On the flipside, there are the group chats you want to stay
on top of like ones deciding dinner plans for the night and so on.
Here’s how you can stay selectively notified.
How: Go to the significant group chats,
tap on the name to bring up Group Info and then Custom Notifications.
There, you can select a custom message alert for the group chats of your
choice. All you have to do now is remember which alert tone you
assigned to which group chat. This customisation is only applicable for
group chats though.
Worried about losing a year’s worth of messages? You don’t have
to. WhatsApp knows how precious your chat history is to you and secures
it all for you in the cloud.
How: iPhone users get the option of
backing their chat history to iCloud automatically on a
daily/weekly/monthly schedule. If it’s only selected chat histories you
desire, click on the chat you want, then the user’s name and finally
email conversation to yourself.
Android users will find the file within the WhatsApp
folder in their phone. Make sure that file, found in WhatsApp >
Databases and named msgstore.db.crypt7, is copied and transferred to the
exact same folder if you wipe your phone or get a new Android device.
6. Shortcuts to conversations
If there are certain people you chat to more often, it might be
a good idea to create a shortcut for them directly on your homescreen
so you don’t have to keep opening and closing WhatsApp. How: Tap and hold on the chat (group or individual)
of your choice and a tab will pop up. Select the Add Conversation
Shortcut option and the chat in question will appear as the person's
profile photo on your mobile desktop. Unfortunately this only applies
for Android users and not iPhone ones. Sorry guys.
7. Saving media
When you’re on a 1GB data plan, every MB counts. You don’t want
to be slapped with a hefty bill at the end of the month from sending
stupid shareable memes and screenshots of every little thing. There’s a
way to make sure that all that heavy-duty image sending won’t eat up
what little complimentary data you might have in your plan.
How: Go to Settings, then Chat Settings
and then Auto-Download and tweak the settings for how you want your
received media to be downloaded. Choose Wi-Fi if you don’t want to
overload your data plan. Alternatively, you can trigger downloads
manually by switching Auto-Download to Never. You can also save the
hassle of having to clean up your camera roll every so often by tweaking
Save Incoming Media off.
What a furor WhatsApp caused with a colour change in its double ticks.
Its latest update confirmed what we’ve always suspected
(but never bothered confirming) all along - namely that the ticks
represent when your messages are delivered, and confirm that they've
been read.
On the flipside, this incident also inspired us to dig
deeper, and we've gatherd up a bunch of features hiding in the nooks and
crannies of WhatsApp.
Prepare to level up your IM attributes:
1. Begone, blue ticks of misery
We know how it is. You're at figure skating practice, your
phone buzzes, and you glance down briefly before nailing a spectacular
triple axle.
Sometimes you've only got time for a quick glance, taking a little
time to formulate a response as you carry on with the rest of our
day. Ideally without having the sender realise that we actually looked
at said message five hours ago, as otherwise they'd think we're ignoring
them. That's the privelege the blue ticks take away.
Recently though, the chat app has realised the error of its ways and
silently come up with a workaround. The liberty of message-mulling is
ours again. How: Users can just access Privacy via Settings and
disable Read Receipts. However, this feature is currently only available
to Android users who are on the all new beta version of the app.
If you're that desperate though, you have to download the beta and head
to your Android phone's settings, enable Unknown Sources to install the
APK file as it's not in the Google Play Store yet.
There, now it's time to iron out the kinks in your friendships that
the blue ticks have caused. The rest of us will just have to wait for a
future update.
2. See when your messages are read
Think the double blue ticks are the worst thing to happen to
relationships since Last Seen? Think again. Here's another way you could
annoy your mates.
In addition to finding out the exact time your messages are
delivered, you can also choose to see the exact time your message was
read if you choose to stick with the ticks.
How: Go to any of your WhatsApp chats,
tap and hold on any of the messages you’ve sent in that chat, followed
by the Info option. For iOS users, you can also drag towards the left to
reveal a window which will show the time your message was delivered and
subsequently read.
It works for group messages too with the window listing the time each participant read the message.
3. Tied to your number
If you’re overseas and you get a new data sim, there’s no need
to go through the hassle of registering the new number attached to the
SIM and faff around adding contacts. Just carry on using WhatsApp with
your regular number.
How: When you put your new SIM in and
activate WhatsApp, you’ll be prompted by the messaging service to
register the new number. But doing so will mess up your contacts list.
Just ignore the pop-up or cancel it, and your WhatsApp should work
linked to your old number, while using your new data SIM.
4. Sending public messages privately
If you’ve got a generic announcement to make - an invite to a
weekend BBQ or an intervention about your friend's unhealthy obsession
with KFC - and you don’t want to do it on the loudmouth platform that is
Facebook, this feature works in pretty much the same way as BCC-ing
people in an email.
Your recipients will get the message as if it was a privately
composed one, oblivious to the fact that you’ve sent the exact same
invite to 342 other people. Sincerity? What's that? How: On the top left hand corner of your WhatsApp
Chats window, just below the search bar, you’ll notice a Broadcast
Lists. Tap on it for the option to create a new list of contacts you
want your message to go out to, and message away like you would
normally.
You are downloading the WhatsApp Messenger 2.11.505 apk file for
Android: WhatsApp Messenger is a smartphone messenger available for
Android and other smartphones.
Tired of only being able to access your WhatsApp conversations on your phone? Now start using WhatsApp Web.
How to use WhatsApp from your computer
Tired of only being able to access your WhatsApp conversations on your phone? Start using WhatsApp Web.
Earlier this week Facebook-owned WhatsApp announced WhatsApp Web.
The new service makes it possible for a user to link a website
accessible only through Google's Chrome browser to his or her WhatsApp
account. In doing so, WhatsApp conversations will sync between the
mobile device and desktop.
As long as you're signed in,
your conversations will sync -- even when you're away from the computer,
or on a cellular connection (as opposed to the same Wi-Fi network as
your computer).
The process for linking your WhatsApp account to your computer is streamlined, and easy enough for Grandma to follow.
First, downloadChrome if you don't already have it installed on your computer.
Follow
the instructions to pull up the WhatsApp Web QR code scanner on your
mobile device. The method for launching this section of the app is a
different based on the platform you're using, but directions are listed
just under the QR code.
Scan the QR code and watch as your conversations magically appear in your browser.
iOS
users will notice directions to connect your iPhone are missing from
the list of supported devices. WhatsApp says the reason is due to "Apple
platform limitations."
The layout
of WhatsApp Web should mirror the mobile experience, just on a larger
scale. You can still send emoji, photos, voice notes, view your contact
list and so forth.
To receive alerts of incoming messages
on your computer, click on Allow (top-right corner of Chrome) when
prompted. You'll need to approve access to other aspects of your
computer in a similar fashion as you attempt to send photos or record
voice memos.
Going forward, anyone who has access to
your computer will be able to pull up your WhatsApp conversations as
long as you remain logged in. If your computer is password protected,
that's probably not a big deal. But when using WhatsApp Web from a
public computer, you'll want to sign out when you're finished. You can
do that by clicking on the three-dot menu icon and selecting Log out.
Have you used WhatsApp Web yet? If so, what are your thoughts?
