WhatsApp Text Status Comes Back As 'About', Rich Notifications Coming Soon

Majority of people using WhatsApp loved text statuses which used to be simple, limited and very expressive in its own kind. Last month, WhatsApp transformed status into disappearing stories which led to the removal of Text Status. After all this happened, people went on to social networks criticizing WhatsApp for the same which in turn took headlines and now the outcome of it has turned out to be positive as in the latest beta for Android, Text Status is back but with a different name.

As seen in the shot above, the new name for the good old status is now 'About'. Now, you must be wondering that this name was somewhere in the WhatsApp settings already, well yes it was, About earlier showed the WhatsApp's version in the app and now the names are very different.

• Status has now become Disappearing Stories
• Text Status is now known as About
• About(which earlier showed app version) is now App Info

So, WhatsApp has played pretty clever here but, earlier the reports said that the Text Status will be named Tagline which we covered too but the things took turn at the final moment and the feature became live again in the version 2.17.95 as ABOUT. Surely, Tagline looked a better name for this but this is how it goes, atleast we have the functionality back. Not to mention, the version which we are talking about is a beta version so it might have not appeared for all till now, wait till this goes live for the stable version. If you're a beta tester already, go ahead and download the latest version from the play store.

Rich Notifications (Upcoming Feature)

We do know that nothing releases without getting leaked nowadays and the same goes for apps too. Now, after all the big updates to the app, WhatsApp is gearing up to add Rich Notifications to the app which has already been spotted by WABetaInfo and is expected to go live soon, ofcourse for beta testers first.

Rich Notifications are those notifications which previews almost all the info without opening the app. Like for example, we can see image previews in notifications if the app supports rich notifications, also the progress bar when uploading or downloading stuff can be seen with the preview. That's what WhatsApp is going to add soon to the app. The images below shows the functionality

These images are from iOS and came in from the beta version 2.17.10.390. So, basically you can push in media which gets displayed in notifications too. To better understand this, see this image-

The feature is disabled by default for now but should go live as the beta version has it already but hidden. WhatsApp is no more the same simple messaging app it used to be. 

Rajat Kapoor

Rajat Kapoor is a self confessed tech geek. Always up to date with what's going on in the tech world, he is currently pursuing MCA and prefers Android over iOS. You will see his articles here and we do hope that you find them useful and informational.