Stickers are one of the many ways – alongside good ‘ol chats, emoji, video and audio recording – that users of messaging applications communicate with others. And they are popular!
Knowing this, and owing to the success of the feature on other messaging apps and platforms, including the now half-dead BBM, WhatsApp went ahead and rolled out the feature in October.
Since then, WhatsApp has gone on to update the feature to include what we call “sticker notifications” which basically means that users of the app are able to see responses to chats that are in the form of stickers from the notification shade without necessarily having to open the app, as used to be the case before.
Now, in coming days, WhatsApp is set to roll out animated stickers to Android users.
The updated feature, which has been under testing on and off since build 2.19.130 of the app became available 9 months ago, is part of the feature set in version 2.20.10 even though, according to WhatsApp-centric site WABetaInfo, it remains inactive.
WhatsApp has been adding several features back-to-back in recent months and the arrival of animated stickers, if they do so soon, may be the biggest feature addition since the turn of the year.
Recently, the WhatsApp Android app became the second-ever non-Google app to cross the 5 billion downloads mark on the Play Store.
Still, the popular chat service’s main app, which has been updated in recent days to remind users that it is owned by Facebook, remains embroiled in a struggle for attention with third-party applications as well as competing messaging apps like Telegram that seem to be always a step ahead feature-wise.
