WhatsApp is getting a new update through the Google Play Beta Program, bumping the version up to 2.24.5.10. What’s cool about this update? WhatsApp is adding a feature to share Lottie stickers, and it’ll be in a future update!
Last year, WhatsApp was reportedly looking into a feature to send animated emojis made with the Lottie framework. Lottie is a library that lets designers make animations that still look good even if you change their size. WhatsApp wanted to make emoji use more fun and lively by adding this feature.
Even though animated emojis aren’t ready yet, it looks like WhatsApp is also working on adding Lottie support for stickers. This was found in the latest WhatsApp beta for Android 2.24.5.10 update on the Google Play Store.
Accodring to WaBetaInfo, WhatsApp is stepping up its sticker game by adding Lottie support, while still keeping WebP, a popular image format known for being efficient and high-quality. Lottie lets stickers have more complex and lively animations than WebP images. With Lottie, stickers can move in cool ways, transition smoothly, and have neat effects, making them more fun and expressive. Plus, Lottie animations can be resized without losing quality, so they work well on different chat apps and screen sizes.
Adding Lottie stickers will make chats more expressive and creative, letting us show our feelings and messages in a cooler way. In a future update, we’ll get better-quality stickers because of Lottie’s support for vector-based animations. Using Lottie for stickers will let us make animated stickers with smoother movements, brighter colors, and more detailed designs, making our chats even more fun.
Besides, WhatsApp might be thinking about changing the status update page. In a future update, the status update tray could look different. It might still be at the top of the updates tab, but the preview windows could be bigger. This would make it easier to see the first story from each person without having to open any of them.
Right now, WhatsApp on Android has a top bar with tabs for Communities, Chats, Updates, and Calls. In the Updates tab, if you don’t follow Channels, you see a list of stories that you can scroll through vertically. The names take up more space than the story previews. If you do follow Channels, you see a circle indicator for stories in a list that you can scroll through horizontally, but there aren’t any real previews.