WhatsApp has been through a big storm in recent months. Now that things have calmed down around its new privacy policy, the Facebook group is trying to give it a facelift by unveiling new features… and an unusual announcement.

Instead of informing us through a press release, WhatsApp CEO Will Cathcart and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg opted to play the game of chatting via instant messaging.

This is how the two presented the changes that will arrive very soon for users. The screenshots of the conversation were published exclusively by the WABetaInfo site, which has always been the first on WhatsApp application news and reviews.

© WABetaInfo

What changes on WhatsApp?

The biggest change discussed is the ability to use WhatsApp on 4 devices (without the primary device being connected to the internet). Users will no longer have a problem having to use WhatsApp only on their smartphone and computer.

Moreover, WhatsApp has mentioned the possibility of arriving on iPad via an application. For that, however, we will have to wait. Multi-device support is expected in the next two months.

The other points discussed concern features related to privacy. For example, it will be possible to automatically delete conversation threads and an ephemeral message display mode (deleted after being read by the recipient).

These features are reminiscent of what Telegram offers today. Since January, messaging as well as Signal have seen their number of users grow exponentially. WhatsApp was increasingly starting to be seen as the villain of the bunch, which Mark Zuckerberg seems to want to change now.

Will this work? Remember that Facebook intends to bring WhatsApp closer to its other services to start making the platform profitable to more than 3 billion active users. In the future, more profound innovations will arrive, in particular in the functionalities of payment and purchase from the messaging service.