Author Archives: Christine

Today we have wonderful news for all of you who use WhatsApp through Android devices. In fact, from now on, you can check straight from the Google Play Store if a new beta version of your favourite instant messaging app has been released. Yes, that’s true.

So far, if you had wanted to update your Android device with the newest version (but not yet stable) of WhatsApp, you needed to go to whatsapp.com/android. If on one hand it was nice because sometimes you discovered that new features had been added (just think about the voice calling function, or the introduction of new emojis), on the other hand this procedure was not so quick and quite stressful.

Think about all the time you have spent checking the site. Not to mention that you had to manually install an APK. Now all these troubles have come to an end and you can finally find the WhatsApp Beta Program software on the Google Play Store. So, what changes exactly? First of all all the updates are delivered automaticaly. Furthermore, you don’t have to download the entire APK each time because the updates are incremental.

Finally, in order to receive the latest updates, you don’t have to subscribe to Google Groups or Google+ communities anymore. You simply have to open the Google Play Store’s WhatsApp testing page and click the ‘Become a Beta Tester’ button. Yes, as simple as that. Now that you are officially a WhatsApp Beta tester the updates will arrive automatically on your device. And that’s not all.

If for any reason you decide to leave the beta program, you can do it by simply heading again to the same page. Once you are here again, you have two choices: the first one is to uninstall the testing version; the second one is to reinstall the public version on Google Play. But be careful. If  you decide to uninstall the testing version, remember to back up your chats on Google Drive.

So, what do you think, isn’t it great? No wonder that this multi-platform instant messaging app has reached the milestone of one billion monthly active users.

Have you got a Nokia S60 smartphone? Do you use WhatsApp? If your answer to both these questions is yes, today we’ve got some interesting news for you. The developers of this popular multi-platform mobile messaging app have just released a new updated Beta version of WhatsApp for NokiaS60 devices (such as Nokia Belle or Symbian Anna), and it promises to be a very useful update.

In fact, this new Beta version 2.12.362 of WhatsApp for Nokia S60 smartphones finally adds more than 500 new emojis! Isn’t it incredible? Let’s be honest, these nice emoticons now are an important part of our messages, since they really help us to express our feelings in a few words (or, sometimes, we don’t even need to use words at all).

But (it seems that there’s always a but to complicate our lives) users will need to wait a little bit to celebrate this latest update and start using these new emoticons. Unfortunately, being 2.12.362 a Beta version, these new emojis cannot be used until the next major update, which will enable the new emoji Unicode 8.0. After that, the new racial emojis will be added too.

Also the size of this latest 2.12.362 beta version of WhatsApp for Nokia S60 has been changed, and now the SIS (installation) download file weighs 1270KB. Besides the introduction of the new emojis, also 20 files bave been modified. Furthermore, 6 new files have been added while 2 images have been deleted. Along with these changes, WhatsApp beta version 2.12.362 brings the usual bug fixes and improvements to the stability of the app.

So, how can we download and install this latest beta version of WhatsApp on our Nokia S60 devices? First of all, remember that in order to update your device with this latest Beta, you have to uninstall the previous version. After that, you can find the SIS installation file of WhatsApp Beta 2.12.362 clicking on this link: https://www.whatsapp.com/nokia/ 

At this point you’ll find a “Download Now” button. By simply selecting it you will download the SIS file to your Nokia device. Once you have downloaded the file, you simply need to open it to install this 2.12.362 Beta version on your Nokia device to complete the procedure.

Jan Koum, the co-founder of WhatsApp and a Facebook board member, has decided to be on Apple’s side together with Google in its fight with the FBI over encryption. WhatsApp support to Apple has been made very clear in a message posted on Facebook by Koum in person who stated: ” I have always admired Tim Cook for his stance on privacy and Apple’s efforts to protect user data and couldn’t agree more with everything said in their Customer Letter today. We must not allow this dangerous precedent to be set. Today our freedom and our liberty is at stake.”

But let’s take a step back to see what happened. The federal court asked Apple to unblock an iPhone used by one of the shooters in the San Bernardino’s terror attack because the FBI is investigating possible links to Isis militants. Tim Cook, Apple chief executive, is not only fighting this decision but also wrote a letter addressed to Apple customers which is being shared on social media.

That’s what Tim Cook wrote: “The US Government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create,“. Cook also added that Apple was “shocked and outraged” and that “We have no sympathy for terrorists.”

WhatsApp was in a similar situation in December, when the  multi-platform mobile messaging app was banned from Brazil for a full day. The reason was the refusal to observe two local court orders.  Encryption is a long debated issue.

In 2014 WhatsApp decided tu use the TextSecure protocol, allowing in this way the central service to switch off encryption at any time and without notifying its users. This means that WhatsApp could face in the future legal actions similar to that one that Apple is facing. Terror threat is giving a hard time to new media, and, as a result, we are now witnessing to attempts of censorship and also users’ privacy seems to be in dangerous water.

After Facebook, it seems that in Israel the interest of the IDF Censor (which should be an independent body, but it’s headed by a military officer appointed by the political echelon) is oriented towards WhatsApp.

According to an interesting article posted on 972mag.com (a blog-based web magazine whose name is derived from the telephone area code that is shared by Israel and Palestine), the IDF Censor is trying to expand its control over new media, and is demanding that both police and first responders have their information supervised before they pass them to journalists through WhatsApp. The news follows a report by Army Radio made public on Tuesday.

Nowadays spokespeople in Israel (such as first responders or the police) often use WhatsApp to communicate with journalists and this popular instant messaging app is largely used by reporters to obtain their preliminary information. As reported this week by +972 Magazine, the IDF Censor is expanding its control not only over mainstream media, but also on private blogs, Facebook and other independent news and analysis sites.

The magazine states that with this kind of censorship the state has the only right to decide what is in the public interest. And a letter sent by the military censor’s office to the spokespeople operating WhatsApp groups for journalists seems to confirm this politic. That’s part of the content of the letter, which was obtained by Army Radio:  “The censorship unit is entrusted with preserving the balance between the right to freedom of expression and the public’s right to know in Israel, and for that purpose we need to know what is happening in the country,”.

+972 Magazine asks a really interesting question: “How many journalists will follow up on a story they believe they can never publish? ” Especially if the Censor decides to tell the press which information can or cannot be reported. Currently only a non-profit and independent first responder service (United Hatzalah) has refused to add the censor to the WhatsApp groups, while the Israel Police spokeswoman declined to give any comments. +972 has asked directly to a representative of the IDF Censor’s office if this kind of censorship law represents a change in policy, and the reply was no.

What’s happening in Israel is not an isolated case (another eaxmple is China), and also in Europe – even if the situation is completely different – the use of WhatsApp is often regarded as dangerous because it could be used by terrorists.

After just a couple of weeks, the updates that were introduced with the latest 2.12.264 beta version  have been added also to the new stable one. In this way, also users who are not enrolled to the Beta testing program can finally benefit of these latest important improvements of WhatsApp for Windows Phone.

So, what changes with stable version 2.12.276? Most of the updates introduced concern the notifications, but some other interesting enhancements have been added. Let’s see step by step what else you can do with this new 2.12.276 version of WhatsApp for Windows Phone.

Notifications of messages
The notifications of messages that arrived on your device while the application was closed will be removed from the Action Center as soon as you open WhatsApp again. And that’s not all. In fact, starting from this new 2.12.276 version, you will be able to see a preview of your missed messages on the app’s Live tile.

As we said above, developers introduced further improvements also in video recording: the “tap and hold” feature now allows you to capture photos and record video in a faster way. And if you think that these improvements are really awsome, you will be really impressed when you discover that this latest 2.12.276 WhatsApp version introduces more than 100 new emojis. Terrific, isn’t it?

After this brief introduction, let’s see how to install this new WhatsApp 2.12.276 stable version on your device. It’s quick and easy, really nothing you need to worry about. Being a stable version, you can download it straight from your Windows Phone, going to the official store. Once you’re on the store look for WhatsApp. Once you’ve found it, you can launch the download and install this latest stable version on your device. It couldn’t be easier. You will notice when the installation is completed and, after that, you can immediately use this new advanced version of WhatsApp for Windows Phone.

You have certainly noted that recently WhatsApp developers have released many updated versions for the Android version of the app, and not so many for the other platforms that support this popular instant messaging app. And users of Symbian 40 and Nokia Asha devices (such as Nokia C3 or Nokia Asha 201) are not really so happy to be the last to receive new features and updates, but unfortunately they are not so many as those of other platforms.

That said, let’s see what changes with this latest update. To be honest also this time there aren’t noticeable changes, since this new 2.13.36 version of WhatsApp for Nokia Asha doesn’t really add any new feature, it only fixes some bugs and improves the app performances. Most of the updates are in the installation (.jar) file, where 1367 files have been modified. Also the size of the app is slightly different, 6KB smaller than the previous update. In addition, 75 files were removed while other 25 files have been added.

If you decide to download this latest version of WhatsApp for Nokia Asha, you will notice that a file named “hidden.res” appears in many directories and, here comes the good news (probably), there are some signals indicating that WhatsApp Web might reach soon Nokia Asha devices (the 565-anim-active-connections.png and  the 565-scan-illustration.png). As usual, you can download this latest Beta update of WhatsApp for Nokia Asha for free, going to whatsapp.com/s40/beta/. If instead you prefer to install the stable version, you will have to wait because you can’t find it yet on the Opera Mobile Store.

You might not know that WhatsApp is preinstalled in the latest software for Nokia Asha 501, so when you have to update the app you simply need to go to Settings > Phone Update. The other Nokia devices which have Whatsapp preinstalled are Nokia 208 and Nokia 515, while you can install this useful instant messaging app on: Nokia S40 – Nokia 206 Single SIM and Dual SIM, Nokia 301 Single SIM Chat Edition and Dual SIM Chat Edition, Nokia Asha 201, Nokia Asha 205 Chat Edition, Nokia Asha 210, Nokia Asha 230 Single SIM and Dual SIM, Nokia Asha 300, 302, 303, 305, 306, 308, 309, 310, 311, 500, 501, 502, 503, C3-00, C3-01, X2-00, X2-01, X3-02 and X3-02.5.

WhatsApp has decided to give its many users another gift which was indeed much-awaited. The popular Facebook-owned instant messaging service app, after having increased the number of group members from 100 to 256, and having cancelled the subscription fee, now is gradually releasing a new Android version which contains tons of new emojis.

In fact, the new WhatsApp version 2.12.441 for Android users finally adds an updated emoji set. The newly reorganized emoji panel brings new symbols like the champagne bottle or the upside down face and even a new detective emoji. And, obviously, you will find the middle finger emoji too. Not to mention the symbol which we expect will be very used for Valentine’s: the new “heart exclamation mark” emoji.

But the update consists not only in new symbols, since also the tabs have been reorganized and as a result now you can find your favourite symbols more easily. Maybe you remember that the same update has already reached iOS users since iOS 9.1, and now, thanks to the support from Unicode 7 and 8, it has been possible to bring the same improvement to the Android platform.

It is still difficult to download this last update of WhatsApp for Android from the Google Play Store, so you need to be patient and wait another couple of days. But if you can’t wait to use this latest version of WhatsApp for Android you can always head to Android Police and download the APK file.

In fact, at the moment there is a little bit of confusion in the Google Play Store and you may be misleaded. That’s because on the Google Play Store you can already find the 2.12.449 version of WhatsApp for Android, but it still does not have the new emojis. That’s why we are suggesting you to get the 2.12.441 APK version. But we are sure that this nice and much-awaited update will be added soon, probably with a new version number, to the Play Store.