It is finally available on Google Play Store the recent update that the many users of WhatsApp on Android devices were awaiting. This 2.12.250 update, as usual, was previously released as a beta version, and now it is available as a stable one. As always happens with new versions, the 2.12.250 brings several new features along with some bug fixes.
In addition to new emoticons (including the now famous “middle finger” emoji, which was hidden in the beta version, and the “Spock’s Vulcan salute”) and the possibility to choose the skin tone of emojis, you can now choose whether to mark a conversation as “unread” or as “read”. Next to the “unread” a green dot will be displayed together with a number next to the Chat tab.
Another important change introduced with this new version is the ability to customize notifications for individual contacts or groups. Furthermore you can set the “silent” mode, which allows you to mute sound notifications for individual contacts with a particularly useful feature that allows you to predefine the time period. With this new option you can mute the chat for eight hours, one week or a year, as you prefer.
To recap, these are the changes brought by this new version of WhatsApp for Android:
- you can mark your chats as read or unread;
- new chat custom notification settings and mute options;
- you can lower the data usage used during WhatsApp calls by simply going in Settings > Chats and Calls;
- when you receive a contact card you can now immediately message or save the contact if it’s on WhatsApp too;
- new emoticons. Now you can even choose a different emoji colour by tapping and holding on it;
- new language support: now WhatsApp supports Urdu and Bengali.
Unfortunately it seems that we still have to wait for the Google Drive Backup feature, even if WhatsApp has stated that they are working on it.