A future WhatsApp update will bring contact photos to your notifications on iPhone. The feature, which requires iOS 15 or later, is already being tested among beta users in version 2.22.1.1 of the app.
This is just one of many improvements WhatsApp has started working on for its iPhone app. Others include revamped contact pages, and a Community feature that gives admins more control over their groups.
WhatsApp will improve notifications on iPhone
Apple made several improvements to notifications with iOS and iPadOS 15 — including the ability to display contact photos. The built-in Messages app was obviously first to take advantage of it, but others have quickly followed suit.
The likes of Twitter, Discord and Slack also added contact photos to notifications, and WhatsApp will soon join the list. WABetaInfo reports that the feature is already being seen by some WhatsApp beta testers.
Not all testers will see it yet, the report says, and those who do “may experience some issues adding profile photos to specific notifications” due to early beta bugs. But it should improve and roll out to all WhatsApp users in the future.
Seeing contact photos in your notifications can make it easier to identify who a message is from with a quick glance. As things stand, you only see the contact’s name, alongside a large WhatsApp icon.
More to come in 2022
WhatsApp has a bunch of other improvements planned for 2022. In addition to those mentioned above, it also will give users the ability to filter nearby businesses and hide their “last seen” status from unknown numbers.
We’re also still waiting for WhatsApp to finally roll out an official iPad app. The messaging service already implemented multi-device support, and it is believed a proper tablet app will follow. It’s one of the few such services that doesn’t work on iPad.
