WhatsApp is among the most popular messaging apps in the world right now, with developers constantly rolling out new and upcoming features through the beta channel.
We touched on one such feature a couple of weeks ago when the app got a search bar for the Chats tab, helping users search for a specific message from a long list of conversations. While the new search bar was added with WhatsApp beta version 2.24.7.1, it hasn't yet made its wider appearance for all users. But that's changing now, with one of our devices showing a prominent search bar in the Chats tab.
We managed to spot this under-development search bar in WhatsApp beta for Android version 2.24.6.77, which first debuted in early March. This makes it clear that the search bar is being tested across multiple app versions, indicating that it's here to stay.
A side-by-side comparison with the search bar that first appeared in version 2.24.7.1 of WhatsApp beta reveals that the new implementation still needs some work. The fact that a portion of the search bar is absorbed by the dark green header tells us that it's not fully optimized just yet.
Meanwhile, my Android smartphone on WhatsApp beta v2.24.8.2 still doesn't have the search bar in any form, so to say it's a slow rollout would be an understatement. But since we've already seen it appear on a couple of occasions already, we can safely say that it is going to be a big part of WhatsApp in the future.
WhatsApp will soon put your favorite stickers front and center
In a separate development, Android app sleuth AssembleDebug has revealed that version 2.24.7.26 of WhatsApp beta contains a "Move to top" button, as shown above. This is designed to put your favorite or frequently used stickers at the top of the list, thus saving the trouble of manually finding them from an exhaustive list. It's a relatively minor feature but one that will benefit users who routinely send stickers to their WhatsApp contacts.
