WhatsApp Spotted Working on Sticker Maker Tool; Encrypted Chat Backup Password Reminders Rolling Out: Report

WhatsApp has been spotted working on a new feature that will allow users to quickly share an image on their smartphone as a sticker in the popular chat application. A feature tracker has discovered the existence of a feature that is still in development, that could eliminate the need for third-party sticker maker apps. WhatsApp Web users already have an inbuilt sticker maker tool, and the functionality could soon make its way to the iOS and Android versions of the app. WhatsApp has also begun to prompt iOS and Android users to enter their encrypted chat backups passwords occasionally to prevent them from losing access at a later date. 

A new sticker maker tool has been spotted on version 23.10.0.74 of WhatsApp beta for iOS, by feature tracker WABetaInfo. The Meta-owned messaging service is still developing the feature, which means that even users on the beta channel cannot currently try out the feature and see how it works. WhatsApp first introduced stickers on its messaging platform in 2018.

The latest addition to the Share menu is a New Sticker option
Photo Credit: WABetaInfo

While there is no word from WhatsApp on how the feature will work, WABetaInfo has shared a screenshot previewing the feature, showing a New Sticker option located at the bottom of the "share" action sheet, under the Poll option. The feature tracker claims that it will let a user select an image from their photo library and make modifications or remove the background, before sending it in a chat. 

It is worth noting that Android and iOS users can already create their own stickers on the messaging service, but the process requires a third-party app to edit images as stickers before they are imported into the application. There are several third-party sticker apps for iOS and Android that could be rendered obsolete by this upcoming feature.

In contrast, the inbuilt feature could work like the sticker maker on WhatsApp Web that also allows the importing of images, which can be modified in order to create stickers. Users who have updated to iOS 16 can also long press images to automatically separate the subject from the photo and drag it into WhatsApp in order to create a sticker.

Chat backup password reminders on WhatsApp for Android and iOS
Photo Credit: WABetaInfo

WABetaInfo has also spotted the rollout of encrypted chat backup reminders, aimed at preventing users from losing access to their backups after forgetting the password used to protect them. Users can either enter their password and click the Continue button, or tap on the Turn Off Encrypted Backups button to switch to the older, less secure chat backups, then encrypt the backup again with a new password.