After going through the development phase and various testing periods, the reactions or emoji reaction feature will be available on WhatsApp starting today.
This was announced directly by the CEO of Meta, the parent of WhatsApp, Mark Zuckerberg through his post on Facebook. In the post, Zuck also revealed what types of emoji reactions were available from the beginning.
The six emojis are thumbs up emojis, hearts, crying, laughing, surprised faces, and high five/thank you/apologize. Zuck also promises to bring more emojis in front of him.
The development of Reactions was first interrupted since November 2021, when WhatsApp tested it on iOS devices. Then WABetaInfo at the end of March 2022 and mentioned that the feature is already available in a number of beta testers of WhatsApp for Android, precisely in version 2.22.8.3.
WhatsApp seems to be releasing this feature gradually because not all beta testers on Android get this feature in the beginning. Based on our monitoring, there are some beta testers who have even downloaded WhatsApp for Android version 2.22.8.4 but still have not received the emoji reaction feature.
The way the emoji reaction feature works in WhatsApp is still unchanged from what was first reported a few months ago. When you tap and hold a received message, there will be a pop-up section containing six emojis.
Users can select one of the six emojis available to react to incoming messages.
In addition to Android, WhatsApp will also bring the emoji reaction feature to iOS and desktop applications. In early January, the WhatsApp beta for iOS had a settings toggle to set 'Reaction Notification', and similar settings also appeared in the WhatsApp Desktop beta version this month.
Emoji reactions are indeed one of the common features found in messaging applications, including iMessage, Google Messages, and Twitter. Facebook Messenger and Instagram even already have this feature before WhatsApp.
