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Just a few short months after WhatsApp launched emoji reactions for its ever-popular messaging platform the company is now rolling out the ability to use any emoji at all for the feature. That’s based on recent reports and a Twitter tweet from the company on the matter.
What’s changing with emoji reactions to messages on WhatsApp?
Now, for clarity, the reactions in questions effectively allow users to use emojis to respond to a message directly. That’s primarily by long-pressing on the message or media users want to respond to. And then select the appropriate option to add a reaction. In this case, that’s the new “plus” shaped icon located next to the previously-available options.
After selecting an emoji in WhatsApp, the reactions appear just below the message’s main content.
When WhatsApp initially added the feature back in May, only six emojis were available to choose from. Although the company did later expand options to include hearts of different colors. That’s in addition to changes ensuring that users could more easily see which media was being reacted to in notifications.
Now, the company is opening things up so that any emoji in the selector is available. Effectively allowing users to respond with any of them as found in the emoji selector on the keyboard. That’s as opposed to being limited to just the previously available options.
When should you see this change?
In terms of the timeline for users to begin seeing the new options, that’s going to vary quite a bit. The company officially announced that it has started rolling out the feature on both iOS and Android. But it didn’t give any indication with regard to exactly how long that rollout would take.
Typically, updates for apps take between a few days and a few weeks to roll out. So that will almost certainly be the case here as well.
Since you asked…
… all emoji Reactions are here! We’re feeling 🤩😎🙌🤸🎉💚 about it.
Starting to roll out now to Android and iOS pic.twitter.com/Opk7x0n0VP
— WhatsApp (@WhatsApp) July 11, 2022