WhatsApp Beta Rolls Out Default Disappearing Messages Update

A new feature is launching on WhatsApp beta that allows users to set all messages to disappear by default. The feature’s current iteration only allows users to turn on disappearing messages for individual chats and only gives the option of seven days.

This new rollout gives you more control over the privacy feature. For starters, there’s now a global timer for all chats, and that’s in addition to the ability to personalise the duration for individual threads. Instead of just seven days, WhatsApp is also adding options for 24 hours and 90 days.

The expanded message timer joins the View Once feature as part of the platform’s growing suite of privacy-focused tools. Be aware of course, that none of these measures prevent recipients from recording or taking a screenshot of the contents that you send and, unlike Snapchat, you have no way of knowing if they did.

The default disappearing messages is rolling out to iOS users on WhatsApp beta and WhatsApp Business beta. Unfortunately, Android beta users will have to be patient as the feature will only be released next week. With the latest beta, WhatsApp also unveiled larger and rounder chat bubbles.

Messages Bug On iOS 15 Deletes Saved Photos

A new report revealed that iPhone users may encounter a serious bug in iOS 15 that deletes their saved images from Messages. In general, the bug would wipe off those images when the user deletes the Messages thread it originates from and then performs an iCloud backup.

Usually, this would not happen as the saved images in the Photos library are independent of the thread. We tested it ourselves and can confirm that while the photos will still remain after deleting the messages, they will disappear once an iCloud backup is done.

Users should be wary of this issue as many iPhone owners out there have enabled their iCloud backups to happen automatically. If you regularly clean up your messages, you should hold off for a while until this glitch is fixed. It is also interesting to note that Macrumors has tested the bug on iOS 15.1 beta 2 and says that the problem has yet to be resolved.

Mobile analytics firm Mixpanel says that iOS 15 has been adopted by almost 20% of iPhone users in less than 2 weeks. So far, several bugs have been discovered in the operating system such as touchscreen issues on the iPhone 13 and overheating issues when using Spotify. We can only hope the upcoming stable release of iOS 15.1 will address most of these problems.