WhatsApp beta learns to have a heart… emoji
WhatsApp is always busy testing its latest enhancements, like what we’ve seen withmoderation toolsfor group chats,privacy improvements, andemoji reactions for status updates. Back in June we learned about work towards giving users a new option to express themselves withlarge, animated, beating heart emoji, but it wasn’t quite ready for beta at the time. Now those beating heart emoji are back, bigger than ever, and waiting for beta users to give them a try.
The latest version 2.22.18.4 beta of the messaging app tested byWABetaInfonow shows these emoji in all their glory. They use the same animation as the big red heart emoji, but with availability spreading to colors such as white, black, purple, blue, green, and yellow. And with that many options, testers can use the different colors toexpress love of all different forms.
Work’s been progressing this way for a while, with iOS WhatsApp beta users first getting some (slightly smaller) animated beating heart emoji back in January. Although ultimately disabled at some point afterwards, they’re now being spotted again in testing on Android several months later.
WhatsApp’s animated heart emoji on Android
That said, we’re clearly still in beta territory here, with some of the implementation coming off a bit half-baked — like how the orange heart emoji refuses to beat. On the bright side, WhatsApp has been kind-hearted enough (pun intended) to give Android users a bigger beating heart emoji than the ones spotted on iOS in January.
Minor beta issues notwithstanding, it looks like this beating heart emoji is getting closer to its final form, and it is coming to beta testers in a phased rollout. We’re less clear about what’s going on with iOS, but hopefully we’ll see this go official for everyone soon.
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