Facebook-owned WhatsApp appears to be cooking up some great new feature for its countless users across the globe. According to a new report, there’s a live location sharing feature included in the latest beta of the WhatsApp app which will enable users in a group chat to share their location live with other members in that group. I can think of a few scenarios where this feature might come in handy.
Say one of your friends has a habit of being late whenever you and friends are out on the town. You keep calling him/her and aren’t ever able to fully find out just how long they will take to get where you need to go.
In that case, all you need to do is fire up a group on WhatsApp and tell them to share their location with you live so you know just when they’re going to arrive. This feature can also come in handy when you and your partner want to keep a watchful eye on your kids when they’re out.
Leaked screenshots of the beta app show that this feature will be disabled by default and since it will be available on both iOS and Android at some point in the future, it will be very helpful if you’re trying to see the location of someone who is on a different platform.
For example, iMessage allows users to share their location but since there’s no iMessage on Android, that can only be done between iOS users. The WhatsApp live location sharing feature will fix this problem. It’s unclear right now when this feature is going to be released to the public.
2.17.3.28 iOS | 2.16.399+ Android: Live Location feature, that tracks the live location of other group participants (DISABLED BY DEFAULT). pic.twitter.com/pYEXT1nxyR
— WABetaInfo (@WABetaInfo) January 26, 2017