Here’s everything WhatsApp changed in October 2023

 

 Here’s everything WhatsApp changed in October 2023
BY

CHANDRAVEER MATHUR PUBLISHED 2 DAYS AGO

WhatsApp's developers finally gave us passkey support and account switching

Billions of people use WhatsApp to stay connected with work, family,

friends, and their interests every day. Meta cannot ignore WhatsApp’s 

dominance and has spent the better part of 2023 working to maintain its 

lead, even if we often spot a feature or two inspired by other fantastic 

messaging apps on Android, such as Telegram. It's at the point where new

 features are seemingly always around the corner, 

and that helps keep things exciting

October was rife with updates from Meta’s engineering team, 
reiterating WhatsApp’s commitment to user privacy and security

 while adding several new features we longed for. We can now 

use passkeys to sign in, and switch between multiple accounts on

 the same device without using hacks like app cloning. October also saw

 Communities pick up more features and a few devices lose the ability to run WhatsApp.

 There’s a lot to unpack here, so let’s crack on.

Use more than one account

Ever since WhatsApp made secure instant messaging convenient over a decade ago,

 we've wished we could use the app with all our phone numbers.

 Doing so usually entailed using third-party software to clone 

WhatsApp on your device, or using a secondary Android phone just for WhatsApp 

(we’ve all been there) because the app only allowed signing up with one phone 

number per device. Development efforts to change this began in June this year,

 and this month, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced official support for multiple user accounts

 on the same device.

Passkeys are the future

In line with WhatsApp’s relentless focus on user privacy, the developers also added passkey

 support to our favorite messaging app. This means you can bypass the SMS-delivered two-factor

 authentication (2FA) code and use secure on-device biometrics like a fingerprint to sign in 

to your account. The feature only comes into play when you’re setting up a new phone or resetting

 an old one, but passkeys have several advantages making them more secure. For instance, they

 eliminate password reuse, and reduce the risk of falling prey to phishing scams

 and password stealer scripts.

Passkeys support is official on WhatsApp now

Passkeys use a match between cryptographic keys on your device and WhatsApp servers to check if

 it's you signing in. On your device, the biometric authentication confirms your identity. This 

makes passkeys immune to person-in-the-middle attacks which can intercept SMS-delivered 2FA codes.

 It's also faster and easier to use than a conventional password or OTP.

More features for voice messages

This October, Meta also focused on voice messages, testing out a way to have them self-destruct 

after the recipient plays them through once. This would effectively add voice messages to the 

list of supported view-once media formats on WhatsApp, which are currently limited to just photos

 and videos. WhatsApp is also working on voice message support in channels, so that administrators 

can record and share clips with a larger audience through channel updates. It would be a big step 

forward because channels only allow sharing images,

 videos, and text at present.

Voice messaging and stickers could come to channels soon

Speaking of channels, we also spotted Meta in the early stages of adding sticker pack support. The addition would make channels more engaging for audiences, but the feature is still in development and unavailable to beta testers this month. WhatsApp beta tested link sharing for specific messages in a channel, just like one can share links to specific updates from a Telegram Broadcast Group. A link to a channel update gives the recipient immediate access to the specific information the sender wants to convey, without the hassle of scrolling through other messages in the channel. It also gives recipients a direct link to see the channel’s content without subscribing for future updates.

Community events on text

While channels serve as WhatsApp’s one-to-many broadcast utility, the platform introduced communities earlier this year to facilitate interactions at scale through topical groups — you could equate Discord servers and channels to WhatsApp Communities and groups. This month, Meta built a few features into communities, so members can gather at a stipulated hour and partake in Community events via text. Participants can schedule a community event for later using the attachment button in the message box.

Interface redesign reaches more people

WhatsApp has been testing a new UI design in the last few months, but availability was always limited to a handful of testers. In October, it expanded through a server-side rollout seen in beta version 2.23.21.12, reaching many more beta testers, including members of the Android Police team. Changes include a new bottom-aligned navigation bar to cycle between chats, updates, and call tabs along with new Material Design 3 toggles in the app settings. Meta also changed the shade of green used for sent messages, made the chat background darker, and switched to a different color for the in-app logo.

Keep chats locked and hidden

Yet another privacy-focused change in the beta channels this month allows hiding chats you locked for privacy reasons. Hiding private conversations out of sight from prying eyes provides another effective layer of security on top of locking the chat. You will need to enter a customizable yet pre-configured secret code in the WhatsApp search bar to reveal the hidden chats, followed by the unlock code for every locked chat. Talk about 2FA within WhatsApp itself!

Slashing redundancies

Because WhatsApp has been around for all these years, Meta is forced to ensure new features are backwards compatible with older Android versions too, and this can quickly become a limiting factor when deploying advanced features like Companion mode. As a result, most developers regularly drop support for aging Android versions, and WhatsApp recently did the same, dropping Android 4.4 and older versions from the list of supported builds. WhatsApp now needs at least Android 5.0 to run, but based on Android version distribution stats, this move should affect less than 1% of users worldwide.

These beta changes should trickle through to the stable channel after sufficient testing. However, the company rarely provides timelines for us to track and look forward to.