What’s new with WhatsApp? It seems that the new year is already confirming the unstoppable growing trend of this popular instant messaging app, which has now almost 1 billion monthly active users. And for the delight of all WhatsAppers, current and future, the company decided to drop permanently the annual fee and let their users enjoy the service for free.
Beside that, the constant hard work of WhatsApp developers is bringing more updates to the service. So people using WhatsApp with devices running with Android, iOS, or Windows Phones or BlackBerry will be able to download new features and to benefit of further performance improvements. Today’s post is for those of you who use WhatsApp with Android devices.
In fact a new Beta version of WhatsApp for Android has just been released, and it’s ready do be downloaded on your Android smartphone. This new version 2.12.411, being a beta, isn’t on the Google Play Store. Therefore, that’s what you have to do to install it on your Android device. You can find the APK (installation) file going to whatsapp.com/android. Once you are on the webpage you simply have to tap on the “Download Now” button (well hilighted in green) to start the download of this new 2.12.411 APK file of WhatsApp.
At this point it is necessary that you enable the “Unknown Sources” option. Why this step is so important? Because “Unknown Sources” is the option that allows you to install an APK file that (like in this case) you’ve downloaded from a third party source. Where can you find the “Unknown Sources” option on your device? You can find it in Settings > Security (or Settings > Application, depending on the OS version that you have on your device).
So, have you enabled this option? Well, now you can uninstall the WhatsApp application that you are currently using on your Android. After that go back to where you’ve saved the 2.12.411 APK file and tap on it to launch the installation. When the installation is completed you’ll have the latest Beta version of WhatsApp installed on your Android device.