Unlike Microsoft, WhatsApp is committed to Windows Phone platform and the company still brings new features to the operating system. WhatsApp is one of the rare companies that bring new features for Windows Phone first and only then to Android and iPhones. WhatsApp is not giving up on Windows Phone anytime soon, the company recently updated the app to 2.17.342.0 with an interesting feature.
The last update for WhatsApp Beta on the Microsoft Store (formerly Windows Store) added a new feature that’s not yet available in private builds for iOS and Android. The Private Replies feature allows the user of group chat to quickly reply to someone privately without opening a new conversation.
However, as first spotted by WABetaInfo, the feature has been removed from the Windows Phone beta app. Earlier today, the company rolled out an update to remove this feature and it appears that WhatsApp wrongly enabled it in 2.17.342.
The feature is expected to arrive on Android and iOS soon, but it looks like Windows Phone was the first to get it after all. It’s likely that the stable version of Windows Phone might get the feature before Android and iPhones.
The last update for WhatsApp beta also improved the UI for voice and video calls in Windows Phone. The company also added a quick switch button to switch from a video call to a voice call.
While WhatsApp is supporting Windows Phone platform, the support for Windows Phone 8 is coming to an end on December 31. If you are one of the users still rocking Windows Phone 8 hardware, you may need to switch to a new device. WhatsApp needs several weeks to update the stable version with new features, if you would like to try out the beta version of the app now, you can download it from here.
