At the beginning of June, Facebook announced that its messaging app, Messenger, had crossed the one billion downloads milestone in the Play Store.
Obviously, Messenger is at least a little bit popular, and now a new sign-up initiative from the social networking giant might do even more to increase its popularity and user base. On Wednesday, June 24, the company announced via its Newsroom that signing up for Messenger no longer requires a Facebook account, as long as you live within the United States, Canada, Venezuela, or Peru.
Even without the Facebook account, those who sign up for Messenger can still send photos, messages, group chats, and have access to voice and video calling as well. A phone number, photo and a name is all that’s required to make it work, and for those that sign up for the first time through the app will see a new “Not On Facebook” prompt on the sign-up page.
The latest WhatsApp update, v2.12.38, has finally delivered a Material Design overhaul to the world's most popular instant messaging app. The update brings about a long-overdue visual makeover, but retains some parts of the app we've all come to rely on, including that funky default wallpaper. See below for screens and to grab the APK for yourself right now.
Admittedly, there's nothing too revolutionary in the overhaul. The thing about Material Design is that we know what we're going to get. The update brings round profile icons and the three tabs at the top has become joined with the WhatsApp banner up top (which, incidentally, has lost its logo). The icons for searching, calling and the overflow menu are slightly remodeled and the green color is even a little more lively.
The new WhatsApp is clean and flat and even has a new shade of green. /
Right now the Play Store doesn't have the latest version with the Material Design changes on board. For the latest version you'll have to enable Unknown Sources in your Security settings (don't forget to disable unknown Sources once you're done) and then head to the WhatsApp website to download the latest and greatest APK.
As long as you have WhatsApp version 2.12.19 or above, which is the first version that does not require an invitation call (which admittedly didn't work for everyone anyway), you'll be able to use the WhatsApp calling feature. You will need to enable ''Unknown Sources'' in your device's security settings first so you can install it.
We've found the call quality to be a little patchy but some are claiming it's even better and more stable than Skype. We'll assume the concrete bunkers we all live in is causing the problem and not WhatsApp's efforts. Once enabled, you'll see a three-tab layout with a calling option next to your contacts.
Once you've received an incoming call you'll see a third tab: Calls. /
If you're having any trouble getting the service to work, you can try some alternative methods in our guide on how to manually enable WhatsApp voice calling. If you want to know how to silence incoming WhatsApp calls now that you've got yet another calling channel to worry about, here's a quick guide for that too.
Silence WhatsApp notifications with Lollipop's Priority Mode
WhatsApp now respects Android 5.0 Lollipop's Priority Mode. This means you can now silence WhatsApp notifications and incoming phone calls – which would previously come through even with Priority Mode enabled.
The issue came about because WhatsApp plays alert tones differently to most apps. Whereas most apps play a notification tone – which Priority Mode can silence – WhatsApp played its notification via Android's media volume, which meant that even with Priority Mode enabled every WhatsApp message would still play a jingle. Considering that basically everyone with a smartphone uses WhatsApp, this essentially made Priority Mode useless.
A previous work around was to silence media volume as well, but as you can probably tell, that would silence all other notifications tones as well. Funny how one app alone can essentially undermine an entire Android feature. In any case, WhatsApp will now be silenced even in Priority Mode, unless you have it white-listed. Enjoy the peace and quiet now that you can actually use Priority Mode.
If you're not a fan of using Hangouts on stock Android to send and receive an SMS then don't worry, with the arrival of Android 5.0 Lollipop, Google has included a new messaging application for SMS & MMS bearing the features of Material Design. And best of all - you can download it today! Messenger is now available for install from the Google Play Store.
Android 5.0 Lollipop provides an all-new application of SMS messaging.
It's almost a year since the release ofAndroid 4.4 KitKat, where the Google Hangouts app was developed from a simple web mail service to become an integrated SMS app. Installed by default on the Nexus range, this application had to be used to send and receive your SMS messages, much to the disdain of some users.
However, Google seems to regret this choice: the Nexus 6 and the Nexus 9 will be arriving with Android 5.0 Lollipop and the brand new SMS application in tow, bearing the name "Messenger". (Reminiscent of a certain social network's similar messaging application...). The app is now available for all devices with Android versions 4.1 Jelly Bean and above.
What does the new Messenger app bring?
• Faster sharing: Select or take pictures and videos directly from the app and share easily. You can even send audio messages to your contacts.
• Easy search: Search through contacts and conversation threads to find exactly what you are looking for.
• Purposeful design: New, fluid, material design that is intuitive and delightful.
• More control: Ability to block SMS senders. No interruptions when you don’t want them!
• More features: audio messages, emoji support 😃, colored text threads, message archiving and more.
If you don’t have Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, you can still try to install it with the Google Messenger APK that we had previously made available, however this isn’t guaranteed. This APK is not official, and may contain some bugs.
What do you think of the Android 5.0 Lollipop Messenger?
