WhatsApp takes competition to Snapchat & iMessage; Update adds exciting video & image-editing features

Popular messaging app WhatsApp has added has added new photo and video features and they are pretty exciting. Users can now draw or write on images in a way similar to Snapchat and more recently iMessage and Instagram.

The latest WhatsApp update has included tools to customise videos and images and also camera upgrades that will allow users take better photos within the app. Some picture-editing tools have been added where users can add captions, drawings, annotations, turn parts of photos black and white and even pixelate parts of images.

As per The Telegraph, users can edit videos or photos by tapping the “Pen” tool in the top right corner. The colour palette with the grey part at the bottom turns pars of images black and white and the hatched selects the pixelating pen.

Captions, various fonts and emojis can also be added. Sizes of emojis can be altered by pinching on the screen and zooming in or out. The WhatsApp update also adds upgraded photo and video taking software to the messaging app.

The WhatsApp Blog states that the company has also added zooming features for video-recording. Users have to slide their fingers up and down for zooming in and out. A double-tap on the screen switches between the front and rear cameras.

WhatsApp now supports front-facing flash for images snapped within the app. It also supports improvements for night-time and low-light photography. A WhatsApp update also allows users to tag their friends and relatives in a conversation by typing @Name. The limit on the number of participants in group messages has been extended to 256 from 100.

These fresh features are a welcome relief for users as WhatsApp faced a lot of flak about a month ago for an update that shared the phone numbers of users to Facebook. Even though WhatsApp assured users of using the number for optimised advertising, it was heavily criticised for its shady Terms & Conditions.