Beginning of the week full of news for WhatsApp which, as always used in spite of itself for scams, and the focus of attention by European institutions, has meanwhile released two interesting betas for Android, with related innovations.
WhatsApp, the famous instant messaging platform of Facebook Inc, now known as Meta, continues with its almost daily release of news and, in the past few hours, just when Europe was discussing how to make it interoperable with the competition, while a scam that exploits its widespread use, has scored two new beta releases for Android, with its load of news in tow.
In the past few hours, Menlo Park has released two beta for Android, full of news. The first beta, numbered as 2.22.8.7, brings to some beta testers a novelty (also spotted by users of the professional beta 2.22.8.7 and 2.22.8.8), substantiated in the famous global player. The latter, spotted in the messaging code, first on iOS and then also on Android, last fall, is apparently in (very) gradual release for those who have installed the aforementioned beta.
To evaluate if in possession of the global player, it is possible to do a rudimentary test, starting an audio message received in a chat and then leaving it, perhaps to consult the latest news of a group chat or to interact with another person. At that point, if the news on your account has been activated remotely, you will see a player at the top, with the pause button on the left, the name of the sender of the audio content in the center, and the X on the right to stop playback. (which, otherwise, would continue – this is the advantage of the improvement – even by abandoning the chat of origin of the audio message received).
WABetaInfo who reported on this roll-out underlines how not everyone could notice the global player, even if they download the beta 2.22.8.7 (from the Play Store if registered on the testers page, or from ApkMirror). In this case, it is good to wait a bit and, in the event of a persistent gap, postpone everything to one of the next beta.
With the release of the Android 2.22.8.8 beta, however, users can have the new emojis available, some of which also with the ability to operate the combinations for skin tones, taken from the latest Unicode, already implemented by Apple with iOS 15.4. In this case, the emphasis made by the WABetaInfo leakers refers to the fact that, to take full advantage of these new emojis, or to be sure that the interlocutor sees them, it is necessary that the latter also has installed the new beta 2.22.8.8 of WhatsApp for Android.
By abandoning the updates, you can focus on future developments and cautions. In the first case, it is news a few days ago that the Parliament, the Council and the European Commission, after a debate of about 8 hours, have agreed on the text of the Digital Markets Act which, if approved, would force messaging platforms (eg . iMessage, Messenger, WhatsApp) to interoperability, ie opening up to other less famous messaging platforms (eg Signal, Trillian, Kakao Talk), giving up their closed nature. If the provision is approved, in the event of non-fulfillment of the same, the major players in the sector could incur fines of up to 10% of their overall turnover from the previous year (or even worse, in the event of a repeat offense).
Finally, from Genbeta, comes the news of a scam in progress on WhatsApp, with which hackers, messaging to date from American numbers, passing themselves off as relatives in difficulty in particular situations (eg without money at the airport), after having solicited the user to guess the identity and simulated a voice call dropped due to technical problems, insistently ask for money as a form of help.