WhatsApp has once again introduced a set of new features to the app, this time focusing on revamping the experience for status updates. The new features will allow users to customise the privacy of their status, interact with them more easily, provide more mediums to update their status, and more.

First up is the Private Audience Selector, which gives you the flexibility to update the privacy settings for each individual status which includes all your contacts, a blacklist, and a whitelist. Your most recent audience selection will be saved and used as the default privacy setting until the next time you change it.

whatsapp status update voice message — Image: WhatsApp

Status updates now use a visual medium, which lets you use text, photos, videos and GIFs. With the new update, users will also make an audio recording and upload the voice message as a status. At launch, the feature will allow up to 30 seconds of recording, which will disappear in 24 hours like any other status update.

Adding on to that, there will be a visual update for status with link previews that automatically provides a visual preview of any link you post on your status. To make sure you don’t miss any updates from your contacts, status profile rings will be present around a contact’s profile picture when they post a status, which will be visible in the chat list, group participant lists, and contact info.

whatsapp status update link preview — Image: WhatsApp

WhatsApp is also making the updates more interactive by letting you react to other people’s status updates with Status Reactions, but unlike the regular Reactions feature, you can only react to an update using one of eight emojis after swiping up on it. According to the company, this feature was the top request from users.

WhatsApp says that all these new features are already rolling out globally. However, it seems that it won’t be available for all users simultaneously, which means some users might have to wait a few weeks to get the update.

(Source: WhatsApp)