WhatsApp hits 800M monthly active users

WhatsApp has reached another milestone and now has 800 million monthly active users. The app is up 100 million users since January, which is the time they hit 700 million. And the app continues to expand steadily. We won’t be surprised if they hit the billion mark before the year ends. Last month, Google Play showed that the Facebook-owned app has been downloaded over a billion times on Android.

Source: VentureBeat

Whatsapp tipped to get voice call capability

It’s not exactly a new feature but it would seem Whatsapp might be integrating it into its messaging app. Screenshots of what seem to be a new build of the app have surfaced online. It could still be in beta though as it hasn’t appeared on Google Play Store yet. It looks like there are going to be different screens for call logs, ongoing calls, and dialing a voice call. If these leaks are true, we should expect to see this in the first quarter of 2015.

Source: Android World | Via: Android Community

WhatsApp gives Android users encrypted messaging

WhatsApp has just rolled out encrypted messaging to its Android users, which means only the account user will gain access to the messages and neither WhatsApp or law enforcement agencies can see what you’ve been saying on the messaging app. End-to-end encryption on WhatsApp is brought by Open Whisper System’s TextSecure code. If you haven’t noticed any changes, well, this has been happening in the backend for the past week or so already. So far this encryption feature is available for Android only. There is no word yet on an iOS rollout.

Speaking of the iOS app, it gets iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus support already and has squashed a few bugs in the system. Hopefully, WhatsApp gets to rolling out encryption to the Apple counterpart as well.

Source: The Verge | Via: SlashGear | Download: Google Play Store (Free)

WhatsApp for Android Wear exits beta

WhatsApp first made its appearance on Android’s smartwatch operating system in beta and it needed users to sideload the app to the device. Now, you just need to download the app from Google Play Store since it’s just been taken out of beta. The update brings the ability to see entire WhatsApp messages on your Android Wear smartwatch, view individual sender’s names in group conversations, and look through stacked notifications to make sure you don’t miss out on any messages. You are also given the capability to reply to messages with the smartwatch through voice reply. The usual bug fixes and performance updates have also been included in this general release.

Source: Ubergizmo | Download: Google Play Store (Free)