WhatsApp is testing a new spot for Status updates, and Canada is part of the trial.
Meta told iPhone in Canada on Tuesday it’s trying out showing Status updates at the top of the main Chats tab, rather than tucking them away in the separate Updates tab where they currently live. The idea is to make them harder to miss before they disappear.
The company said Status is used by hundreds of millions of people every day, and it often hears that people miss statuses from their contacts. Since those updates disappear after 24 hours, Meta is testing whether putting them front and centre helps people actually catch them in time.
Here’s what it looks like according to an image shared with iPhone in Canada by a Meta spokesperson:
The test is running with a number of WhatsApp users around the world and now in Canada, as Meta puts it, to figure out whether the change is actually useful or just gets in the way.
The tray only shows organic Status updates from your own contacts. You can minimize it by swiping down, or hide any specific contact’s updates whenever you want. And Meta says nothing changes about the privacy of your personal messages and calls on WhatsApp.
No word yet on whether this rolls out more widely, which will presumably depend on how the test lands with the people seeing it.
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