Notification previews are a great way for iPhone users to get a snapshot of the content of their messages without having to open up the app itself.
It’s especially useful with messaging apps like WhatsApp, when notifications can often flood in very quickly. However, previously the functionality has fallen somewhat short when it came to media previews, with the notification simply telling users they’d received a photo, video or GIF, rather than displaying the imagery itself.
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In many cases, depending on who’s sending you the message, that might be a blessing in disguise.
However, the Facebook-owned app has now started rolling out an update that is rectifying that. Starting with version 2.18.90, WhatsApp now includes media previews that allow you to view a piece of media straight from the notification bar (via MacRumours). Simply swipe a notification to the left and click ‘view’ to see the piece of media in question.
The preview will show the image in full, or give you the opportunity to do download it. Here’s what the notification will look like with media previews in effect.
We’ve been able to download the update for ourselves, but depending on which territory you’re in, the update may or may not already be available.
However, at the time of writing the functionality doesn’t appear to be working for us properly (we’re still getting the photo emoji) but apparently we’re not alone and WhatsApp is working on a fix.
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Media previews are joined by another new piece of functionality which will flag suspicious links that have been sent to you. Hopefully this feature will work well enough to prevent you from being sent links to any dodgy web pages.
What other features would you like to see built into WhatsApp? Drop us a line @TrustedReviews on Twitter.