WhatsApp wildly expands emoji reactions, leaves Telegram in the dust
WhatsApp has been on a roll lately in adding new features. Over the last few months, the messaging service has gained features likemessage reactions, the ability to share files up to 2GB, support forgroups with up to 512 members, and newCommunities. It is also testing a plethora of improvements that are currently under development, including multi-device 2.0 withcompanion mode support.Message reactions have been a welcome addition, as they allow you to express yourself better and help keep unwanted messages in check. Two months after the feature first debuted, WhatsApp is further improving it by letting you use any emoji to react to a message.
FacebookMeta’s initial implementation of message reactions was quite limited, as you could only use six different types of emoji as reactions. WhatsApp is now addressing this limitation in its latest update, with Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg announcing in aFacebook post(viaWABetaInfo) that you can now use any emoji as a message reaction. When you long-press a message to react to, you should see a+symbol allowing you to select any emoji you’d like to use as a reaction.
WhatsApp was first spotted testing this improvement formessage reactions in late June. Considering that hundreds of Unicode emoji are available on an Android device, you can now react to a message in any way you feel.
Interestingly, this enhancement also gives WhatsApp an edge over Telegram, its primary competitor. The latter allows you to use 17 different emoji for reactions. Additional emoji reactions are locked behindTelegram Premium, which you need to pay for. Seventeen emoji should still be sufficient for most users, but if you care about how you express yourself, WhatsApp now has an advantage in this department.
Since this is a server-side update, WhatsApp users should get it in the coming days or weeks. You can try your luck by updating WhatsApp to the latest release to see if that enables the option to use any emoji as a message reaction.
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