WhatsApp now lets you share media from other apps like Dropbox and Google Drive

WhatsApp 2.12.14 3D Touch shortcut menu Home screen iPhone 6s screenshot

The popular mobile messaging service WhatsApp today received a pretty cool update in the App Store which adds the ability to share photos or videos from other apps installed on your iPhone via a new option exposed after tapping the Photo/Video Library button.

In addition, WhatsApp has gained a pair of new shortcuts in the 3D Touch menu on the Home screen and now supports solid colors as chat backgrounds.

Oh, and you can now zoom in on videos while they’re playing.

New options in 3D Touch shortcut menu

In addition to the previous Search and New Chat Quick Actions, WhatsApp now supports a pair of additional items in its 3D Touch shortcut menu on the Home screen: Take Photo or Video, which does just that, and Starred Messages, which takes you to the list of individual messages you have starred to make them easier to search.

WhatsApp also supports 3D Touch Peek and Pop 3D gestures within the app.

New ways to share media

Tap the leftmost button in the chat text entry field and select the Photo/Video Library option. Up pops the familiar interface for browsing photos and videos on your device, with one subtle change at the bottom in the form of a new Choose from another app button.

WhatsApp 2.12.14 for iOS iPhone screenshot 001

Tap it and up pops iOS’s standard interface for selecting document provider extensions installed on your device. When you install an iOS app that supports document provider extensions, its file selection interface becomes available in any app that exposes Apple’s iCloud Drive to the user.

If you have installed the Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive apps on your device, for example, you will be able to select these service in WhatsApp’s menu and choose a media file stored there.

For instance, you could pick a photo in your Dropbox and Dropbox’s document provider extension will download the file in the background and send it to WhatsApp for you to send to a contact.

How cool is that?

Solid colors for your chats

In addition to a bunch of built-in wallpapers, WhatsApp at long last lets you select a solid color as your chat background. Tap on the Settings tab at the bottom, then go to the new Chats → Chat Wallpaper → Solid Colors section to select your chat background.

WhatsApp 2.12.14 for iOS iPhone screenshot 002

WhatsApp 2.12.14 highlights

The release notes mention the following changes in WhatsApp 2.12.14:

  • Improved design for browsing photos and videos
  • You can now share photos or videos from other apps installed on your phone, like Google Drive, Dropbox, or Microsoft OneDrive. When you open “Photo/Video Library”, just tap “Choose from another app…”.
  • Pick from a variety of solid colors for your chat background
  • Zoom in on videos while they’re playing

WhatsApp recently stopped charging an annual subscription fee.

Availability

WhatsApp requires an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad with iOS 6.0 or later. The app lacks a native interface on iPads and a native Apple Watch app.

The software is localized in English, Arabic, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian Bokmål, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese.

Grab WhatsApp at no charge in the App Store.