Search icon

News

08th Jun 2016

WhatsApp is finally adding one brilliant chat feature we’ve been crying out for

At last...

Ben Kenyon

Using words is so 20th Century.

We’ve come a long way since the days of long, rambling text messages punctuated with ‘TB’ at the end.

First came picture messages and video, followed by the ever-expanding reservoir of emojis to express how you’re feeling in not so many words.

But you can only say so much with those daft little ideograms. What we’ve all been crying out for is GIFS to truly make our feelings known.

They’ve been around since the year dot – but finally, in the Year of Our Lord 2016, the world’s biggest messenger app has finally caught up and given us the expressive power of GIFs.

WhatsApp looks like it has now caught up with Twitter, Facebook Messenger and the rest of the civilised world.

The new feature hasn’t been officially announced yet, but the eagled-eyed folk at @WABetaInfo noticed the update in a beta version of the popular app.

It looks like the update that will allow you to troll your pals with all the bountiful GIFs the internet has to offer will come in the 2.16.7.1 version, according to the Mirror.

The good news is that the update will mean you can send GIFs that play directly as God intended, without having to convert them into videos.

The bad news appears to be that there will be no GIF library to tap into like on the Facebook Messenger app.

But you’ll never have to type silly words again.

https://twitter.com/WABetaInfo/status/740594040165572609