WhatsApp Quietly Rolls Out Read Receipts; Voice-Calling Icons Spotted

Facebook-owned Whatsapp has released an update for its application, which brings the ability to see whether your message has been read by the recipient and when it has been read.

The messaging app has introduced new blue tick marks, which appear when a message you have sent to one of your contacts has been delivered and read by the contact. You can also long-press on the message to find the exact time when the message was read by tapping on the message info button.

“If you see two blue check marks next to your sent message then the recipient has read your message. In a group chat or broadcast message, the check marks will turn blue when every participant has read your message,” Whatsapp explains in its FAQs section.

If you don’t see the blue check marks, it could be because your contact’s Whatsapp app is outdated or your message has not been read yet or you or the recipient are experiencing connection issues.

WhatsApp recently announced a delay in its plan of introducing the free voice-calling feature this year, pushing back the launch to the first quarter of 2015. WhatsApp CEO, Jan Koum, claimed that the firm still had several technical issues to overcome before it could successfully launch seamless voice calling. Koum noted issues like how the app doesn't have access to certain microphones on the smartphone to properly enable noise cancellation.

Koum also added that the WhatsApp development team was looking for ways to implement the voice calling service in poor data coverage areas, considering that many WhatsApp users in emerging markets were still on 2G networks.

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