There is a new beta of WhatsApp circulating on Android: the version is 2.22.5.1 and is being distributed through the official test program on the Play Store. The innovations mainly focus on the interaction between companies and private users.
More specifically, companies are shown a new explanatory message when a user tries to contact them via the Business Directory service.
Business Directory is a service that has been tested for a while and currently only works in Sao Paulo, Brazil, which allows users to search for companies and businesses in their vicinity. A sort of digital Yellow Pages, if you like.
In fact, WhatsApp is planning two types of messages: a more discreet notification directly in the chat and a pop-up message, according to what WABetaInfo colleagues have discovered by rummaging through the application code.
In this first phase, only the message integrated into the chat should appear, the pop-up will probably be released at a later time (and should only concern WhatsApp Business).
For the rest, there doesn’t seem to be any substantial news – at least it hasn’t been discovered yet. In fact, as often happens, not even the novelty described in the update is actually available to the public in the build of the app: the source has managed to activate them by fiddling with the code. As usual, the novelty has been found on the Android app, but there is no reason to doubt that it will also arrive on iOS.
It is worth remembering that recently the Facebook / Meta platform has shown, again in the Beta channel, new progress on the reactions to messages, as well as new limits, much more generous than the current ones, for the cancellation of messages already sent. There is also less pleasant news regarding backups to Google Drive, while the iPad app seems like an increasingly real possibility.