In November last year, WhatsApp introduced a media hub to its Mac app and web version. Now, the company appears to be developing the feature for iOS, according to WABetaInfo.
For those unfamiliar with the feature, the media hub is a centralised place where users can see all of the shared media and videos from all conversations all in one screen. Beyond your typical media formats, the feature also collates various links and documents that have been shared through the messaging platform.
One of the more useful aspects of the feature is that users do not need to open individual chats to find what they are looking for. Instead, they can access their media through WhatsApp’s settings. The media hub also lets users search by sender or caption, find links using their URLs, sort items by date or file size, and forward or delete multiple items at once.
The blog further notes that users will be able to react to media, star items or open the original conversation directly from the hub. There will also be a dedicated heart icon for finding media associated with messages they’ve reacted to.
With that said, there appears to be an interesting difference between the iOS and Mac versions. According to WABetaInfo, the media hub for iOS will include a dedicated section for received media. However, the blog notes that the media hub will not display media sent by the user, which is an interesting, albeit potentially frustrating, design choice.
Once users open the media hub, they can choose between viewing recently received items or browsing everything in the All media tab. The New tab displays media received recently, while the All media tab provides a more comprehensive view of the content.
Users can also filter media by type, including photos, videos and links, and switch between list and grid views. It’s important to note that disappearing messages sent through WhatsApp will not appear on this screen.
With that said, the feature is still under development, so it might be a while before WhatsApp rolls the feature out to the public. When that will be, however, is anyone’s guess.
(Source: WABetaInfo)
