About a year ago, WhatsApp updated its Android app with a bottom navigation bar following Material Design principles. Though WhatsApp seemed to have a change of heart in June, bringing back swipeable tabs in a beta, meant that the prior experience with swipeable tabs had to end. The feature vanished quickly, though, and reappeared in September after that. Subsequent versions of WhatsApp removed functionality for swiping movements, but it appears that the chat app owned by Meta is still working on it, as the swipeable navigation bar has returned in the most recent beta version.
The discovery was made by WABetaInfo, who stated that the Android WhatsApp beta version 2.24.7.2 permitted this modification. The website notes that some users of the stable version of the app might also be able to access this new swiping feature, suggesting that WhatsApp may have turned on the feature with a previous beta version of the software.
Regular app users will surely find it easier to swipe between tabs because it eliminates the need to hit each tab separately. We won’t be shocked, though, if WhatsApp developers decide to abruptly end this feature once more in the near future, given the Android navigation bar design requirements.
Additionally, WhatsApp is developing a new search bar
WhatsApp is still experimenting with different design components. Additionally, a noticeable search bar at the top of the chat list is being tested by the app. This was discussed in more depth in another WABetaInfo report published over the weekend. It was stated that the search bar started to show up with the earlier v2.24.7.1 release of the WhatsApp beta for Android.
This search box will only show up within the conversation list, as you can see above. To further eliminate redundancy, the search icon at the top of the screen has been deleted. However, we’re not sure if this is the search bar’s final implementation as WABetaInfo anticipates “additional alterations” before it’s ready to launch.
