Ever wanted to share a nice photo or meme with your loved ones, but you couldn’t because there was something present in the image that you did not want the recipient to see? Maybe it is a group photo where you do not want one of the members to be seen, or maybe the picture was taken when one of the members was making a funny face or showing an offensive sign that might not be received well by most people.
There are a few ways WhatsApp users have gotten around these limitations, including cropping the image, drawing zigzag lines over the sensitive part of the photo, or overlaying the sensitive part with stickers and emojis.
Despite these methods getting the job done, there are a few hindrances including cropping being near useless when the sensitive part is not near the edges of the photo, or the overlaid stickers ruining the aesthetic of a photo. You can use a third-party app to blur out the unwanted part, but this is an unwanted step that does not make texting on WhatsApp convenient.
In the most recent WhatsApp Beta, v2.22.7.1, WABetaInfo reports that a blur feature might be introduced in the Android space after initially being an exclusive feature for iPhones.
This blur feature will make hiding sensitive parts of photos easy and straightforward as you would only need to “draw” over the part you want to hide, then WhatsApp will pixelate it, making it impossible to discern what you have hidden.
This is not the first time the blur feature has been seen in the WhatsApp Beta for Android. Back in v2.22.3.5, WABetaInfo got a glimpse of the blur tool, which will reportedly come as part of a completely revamped drawing editor. “It will give users the ideal way to remove details from images before sharing.”
It still baffles me why WhatsApp had the feature for the longest time on iOS, while the Android version of the app had to do without it. There is no indication that the Android OS could not handle the feature, as there are numerous apps on the Play Store capable of blurring objects in photos.
In addition to the blur tool, the instant messaging app will also get two new pencils of different thicknesses, bringing the total number of pencils available on the app to three.
Despite the blur tool appearing on the WhatsApp Beta, WABetaInfo believes its release is still some time out as it is not yet fully functional. It still has a few quirks that need to be ironed out before it is rolled out to the masses. When this will happen is still in the air, but better late than never.
For a company that has virtually unlimited resources compared to its rivals, Meta, or rather, WhatsApp, takes a considerably longer time implementing new features, often copying them from existing platforms like Telegram.
What they have as an advantage is a large user base that would find it difficult to switch messaging platforms as their friends, workgroups, church groups and other communities in general often use WhatsApp for communication, making it difficult to do without it.
