WhatsApp update for Android brings custom notifications for contacts, skin

Popular messaging platform WhatsApp has just rolled out an update to its Android app that brings a bunch of useful new features, including custom notifications. It also enables users to choose a pop-up style or even mute conversations for a preset period of time including 8 minutes, 1 week, or 1 year.

The update also adds the option to mark chats as read or unread, this is only local, when a chat is changed from read to unread, the other party doesn’t see the change.

If you make a lot of WhatsApp calls and want to reduce your data consumption, WhatsApp has added a new option in the app for that goal.

Below is the changelog for the Play Store update with some new features that were not in the beta builds such as language support and options message or save contact after receiving their cards.

Another novelty that comes with this update is that it is now possible to mute individual contacts before this feature was only Available to groups WhatsApp.

WhatsApp has also introduced skin tone variations for several existing emoji.

Additionally, there are a few new custom notifications settings.

Users can now mark chats as unread or read. Oh, and there’s a new Vulcan salute if you need it. However, users who installed the WhatsApp 2.12.159 or 2.12.161 beta version might have got a chance to use them in their chats. WhatsApp team of developers are working on the feature and also said that they will roll out the feature soon, in the next few versions. It is only there to make it easier to spot or ignore them. So, open the browser that you use on your Android smartphone and head to whatsapp.com/android. The update is now available via the Google Play Store.