After introducing a myriad of new features like Data Sharing and Group Settings, WhatsApp recently started working on three exclusively new features labeled Vacation Mode, Silent Modes, and Linked Accounts through the Google Play Beta Program. Although Silent Mode and Linked Accounts are ship-ready, Vacation Mode is still under development. Let's dive into each new feature.
Vacation Mode
As of now, WhatsApp allows users to archive chats. Archived chats get automatically "unarchived" as soon as there's a new message sent to the recipient by the user of the archived chat. However, "Vacation Mode" is a little different- with this new feature, those archived chats that receive new messages won't be "unarchived" automatically as long as the chat had previously been muted. An example of using this new feature would be muting group chats and then archiving them, making the group sleep inside the archive regardless of the influx of new messages. Although chats that are "muted+archived" can be viewed using the "Archived Chats" options, muted+archived chats won't ever show up in the regular (generic) list of chats.
Silent Mode
This new feature is exclusive to Android. "Silent Mode" will help users remove the "App Notifications Badge" for chats that have been muted. Doesn't it feel annoying to open up the app to a couple of unread messages from nothing but muted chats? "Silent Mode" prevents the badge from updating the counter in relation to all the chats that have been muted. Hence, even if there are a thousand unread messages from muted chats, the App Notifications Badge will show 0 Unread Messages due to the fact that all of the unmuted chats would have been read.
Linked Accounts
The "Linked Accounts" feature isn't live yet - originally intended for WhatsApp Business, this feature would let a user connect their WhatsApp account with external services. For example, the latest rumor that's been going around is of an ability Facebook is working on for both Facebook and WhatsApp that would let users unlock their Facebook accounts using their WhatsApp account. The "Linked Account" settings will be displayed under the "Profile" options. As of now, only one application service, Instagram, has been successfully linked to WhatsApp. The successful linkage of users' WhatsApp accounts with their Instagram accounts can prove to be very beneficial for Business account owners due to the fact that they can share their Business updates from WhatsApp directly to Instagram.