New White Noise release: group polls and better message sending

Group polls and better message sending

Group polls are here on iOS and Android. Today's White Noise release also improves message sending and makes larger group conversations work better, with more control over everyday chatting on each platform.

Ask the group

Open the attachment menu in a group chat and choose Poll. Add your question and answers, then let people pick one answer or several. Votes and results update inside the conversation, and people can change their choice while the poll is open.

An optional closing time gives everyone a deadline. After it passes, the results stay visible. Polls live inside your encrypted group chats and work across iOS and Android.

Sending and catching up

We've worked on the send process and group recovery, with particular attention to keeping larger groups usable as activity grows. Both apps use the updated Marmot messaging engine, bringing that shared work to iOS and Android together.

Edits made while a message is still sending now survive its confirmation. On Android, we've fixed interruptions to pending messages and made sending with Amber more reliable.

Chat recovery is better, and the apps now tell you when some history may be missing. Scrolling through older conversations is smoother, with better handling of messages arriving while you read.

More control on Android

Set a default disappearing-message timer for each profile under Settings > Privacy & Security. Chats and groups you create start with that timer; existing conversations keep their current settings. You can still change the timer for an individual chat.

Dictation now gives you a choice for each recording: Paste puts your words into the draft for editing, while Send submits the message. We've also improved dictation setup and its controls.

Profile and group photos get a crop preview so you can choose what appears in the frame. GIFs sent from iOS animate on Android, too. Sharing supports more kinds of documents, and downloads you start keep running when you leave the conversation.

You can delete chat folders and use Wave hi to welcome a new group member. Notification and push-recovery fixes are included as well.

Easier photo sharing on iOS

Photos and videos begin uploading while you write your message, with an indicator on each attachment. That gives uploads a head start before you tap Send.

Tap a profile or group photo to open it full-screen and zoom in. In a conversation, swipe between photos in the viewer or tap a sender's avatar to open their profile. A link menu now lets you copy a link directly.

We've fixed QR scanning and photo-selection issues, along with a sign-in crash involving password autofill. Chat previews now show the type and number of attachments, making photo-only messages easier to recognize.

Get the update

Thanks to Jeff Gardner, Pepi, Danny Morabito, Mubarak Auwal, Vladimir Krstic, Datawav, Max and Laura for the work. Friends and family testing the apps have helped us find bugs in daily use. Keep the reports coming as we continue with frequent releases.

Get the update on TestFlight for iOS or Zapstore for Android. Learn more at whitenoise.chat.