WhatsApp could soon look more colourful on the desktop

Meta is working on an improvement to WhatsApp's web app that will introduce themes. According to a report, the company is planning on bringing the same themes and features you'll find on the mobile app to the web app. It could debut with as many as 49 themes.

Both WhatsApp on iOS and Android enjoy theme support, allowing users to not only change their background but also the colour of the chat bubble itself. At the moment, neither the web app nor the desktop app share the same functionality, but that's set to change.

The incoming themes include several shades of the same colour, which could also simply mean the company's just testing which themes it plans to introduce at launch; neither Android nor iOS have that many.

WhatsApp is also expected to introduce per-chat level customisation, as well as a background which shifts to match the themes. Unlike Messenger or Instagram Messenger where themes are shared with the other side of the conversation, WhatsApp is expected to continue keeping user-selected themes private to each user's account.

A Less Drab Interface 

WhatsApp has offered a web app for a few years now, but the company often issues updates to its mobile apps before its web app. That's by design, of course, the mobile app is WhatsApp's real bread and butter here. The web app could certainly do with some spicing up, as the interface remains quite dull despite its current paltry number of available customisation features (currently limited to a pre-selected array of colours and adding doodles) A fully fleshed out themes system would be a marked improvement on what has so far been a drab look, and Meta's pretty good at making engaging desktop clients for messaging app with Messenger and Instagram as examples.

The team behind WhatsApp is also said to be working on a username feature, and while the company hasn't announced it, this move would bring it in line with other Meta products like Facebook and Instagram, as well as rivals like Telegram which all offer messaging via username.

Both features are in advanced stages of development and could roll out later this year, but WhatsApp has yet to make any public announcements about either.