WhatsApp adds a little color to its text status feature

A fter adding Stories to its Status update feature, WhatsApp is making the tab and little more Instagram-like. WhatsApp has announced a new form of status update, in which users can set color and background to texts for their status. Basically, if you have status update to share, which is not a photo or video story, you can now make those words look more interesting by adding a little color to the text and setting it against a snazzy background.

Though you can do that on Facebook too, what’s Instagram-like in the update is the additional support to add links to the status. So for instance, if your status is a shout out for your friends to join you for a party, you can link the address to the venue in your status. By the way, you can do a similar thing on Snapchat too. In the most recent update, Snapchat added the support for embedding links within Stories. This new WhatsApp status update is now available for both iOS and Android devices. If your app is not on auto update, go to the App Store/ Play Store and update it to receive the feature.

Besides, the update to the status, the August 20 iOS update for WhatsApp now also lets your just tap and hold on text to easily bold, strikethrough or italicize it. Earlier, users had to put prefix and suffix symbols with texts to apply these effects. Other than that, with the new WhatsApp update, both Android and iOS users can now view Status updates on WhatsApp for the web as well.

While that’s what comes in the latest update, something even more interesting is set to make it to WhatsApp soon. According to the WhatsApp version 2.17.295 spotted on the Google Play Beta Program, the platform may soon rollout support for UPI payments for peer-to-peer (P2P) money transfer.

WhatsApp won’t be the first Facebook-owned platform to integrate payments. Back in 2015 , Facebook Messenger was added with support for money transfer to friends and family. However, the feature is limited to the US market. In India, homegrown WhatsApp-rival Hike rolled out in-app payments (Hike Wallet) in June this year.

Source: BGR