It’s no secret that everyone loves using social media to share photos and videos, including on WhatsApp. Now, a new feature seen in the latest WhatsApp beta shows that the messaging app is getting an option to share media in “Best Quality”.
WhatsApp to Add a “Best Quality” Media Sharing Option
As first spotted by WABetaInfo, the latest WhatsApp Android beta (version 2.21.14.16) includes a new option to share media in “Best quality”. This option would allow users to send photos and videos in a higher quality that WhatsApp’s standard option.
📝 WhatsApp beta for Android 2.21.14.16: what’s new?
WhatsApp is finally working on images sent using the best quality!
The feature will be available in a future update.https://t.co/RBeJ5XdcRm— WABetaInfo (@WABetaInfo) July 8, 2021
In the WhatsApp beta, we can see that a new Photo upload quality option is presented in the Storage and data page. Users can choose between sending images in Auto, Best quality, and Data Saver. There’s also an identical option for videos.
It’s unclear if the “Best quality” option will leave images entirely uncompressed, or just less compressed through a lossless method. Currently, WhatsApp uses a lossy compression method, which means some quality is lost in the compression.
You can’t help but notice the striking similarity to the image quality naming in Google Photos. Google’s photo storage platform also uses the term “Best quality” for storing higher quality images.
As with any app beta, bear in mind that the features might not come to a final WhatsApp release. This particular seems very likely to be rolled out in an alpha update, but WhatsApp could change its mind at any time. There’s also no indication as to when the feature would be rolled out to all users.
Will I Notice the Difference With WhatsApp’s New Option?
Currently, WhatsApp’s compression shrinks images down to around 2MB. The average original image shot in a mobile device can be around 3MB. This doesn’t sound like much, and the average user probably won’t notice much of a difference–especially on mobile phone photos.
The real difference comes in the dedicated high-quality image files. RAW is the most well known high-quality image file format, but newer iPhones can also shoot in the ProRAW format. In these formats, the extra image information that results in a high-quality image is lost through the compression–as it’s considered irrelevant.
While most WhatsApp users are unlikely to be sharing RAW files on their phone, it could benefit photographers using WhatsApp Web or Desktop when sending images to clients. However, it’s currently unclear if the feature is even coming to either of those platforms.
WhatsApp Is Taking Images Seriously
With the new feature, we can see that WhatsApp is taking a new approach to images. With other messaging apps offering the same feature, WhatsApp is matching its competitors features.