WhatsApp gains multi-recipient sending, ‘frequent chats’

WhatsApp is one of the largest mobile apps in the world, and Facebook is aiming to make it your go-to center for all of your textual communications. To that end, the social giant is pouring as many new features as they can muster into this massive texting platform. Today we’re seeing multi-message sending and a ‘frequent chats’ module.

The multi-message functionality is pretty straightforward. Now when you’re composing a message that you want to send out to multiple discrete contacts and/or group chats, you can long-tap the first recipient to unlock a multi-selection mode. Tap all the intended recipients, then give the arrow button a press to fly your message out to the world. Now you won’t have to copy and paste updates about your life to send to multiple parties; you can do it all at once.

The ‘frequent chats’ section now rides above your ‘recent chats.’ This is something of a controversial design move, as many users prefer to have their conversations sorted in a simple reverse chronological order.

However, the change reflects a similar one that recently came down the pipe for Messenger. For that app, the UI shift was clearly for ad-related reasons, as ‘suggested chats’ paved the way for Messenger to insert business chats into a prominent position on your Messenger homescreen. Could this be an early indicator of a new monetization strategy for WhatsApp?

We’ve got a lot of WhatsApp updates coming in the near future. The developers have been experimenting with gif support, image annotating, and video calling, but for now we’re seeing more humble and practical features arrive on the messaging platform.

What are your thoughts regarding this update to WhatsApp? Grab the latest version from the Google Play Store by clicking the button below, and sound off your opinions in the comments!