Hover message actions, spellcheck and live call records
Message actions appear on hover and work from the keyboard, the Mac composer checks spelling, and a live call shows its running time in the conversation. Unsent files survive quitting.
New
Incoming calls ring once
Incoming calls gained a single ringing path whether the application was in front or behind other windows. On the Mac, notification ringing respected the system’s notification and Focus behaviour, with an application sound as the fallback when notifications were off.
New
Keyboard text selection and word boundaries
Shift with the arrow keys extended message-text selections, and word selection improved for Chinese, Japanese and Thai. Double-clicking text no longer briefly flashed a message-selection outline.
New
A live call record in the conversation
The call’s elapsed time counted in its message row while it was live. When the call ended, that same row became its lasting call record.
Also new
- Familiar message actions. Message actions appeared on hover, and clicking a message stopped selecting it as a whole. Keyboard focus provided access to the actions while ordinary clicks and drags remained available for text.
- Spelling and text substitutions. The Mac composer gained spellcheck, autocorrection, text replacements and smart substitutions. The text menu retained Look Up alongside the other editing actions.
- A readable preview while dragging text. Dragging selected text showed the actual text as the drag preview, following the Mac’s familiar behaviour.
- Open the people list from its count. Clicking a conversation’s member count opened its people list. This made the number itself a useful way to inspect who was present.
- Keyboard access to message actions. A focused message could be navigated with the arrow keys and acted on with shortcuts for reply, edit, reactions, copying and preview. Up in an empty composer could begin editing the latest message.
- Organisation people counts open their lists. The organisation’s sidebar member count also opened its read-only people list. Group and channel counts opened their conversation members, giving both kinds of count a direct action.
Fixed
- Unsent files survive quitting. Files waiting in the composer were preserved across quitting and reopening. A failed drag out of the application also gained a plain-language explanation.
- Revoking a device mid-change keeps conversations consistent. Revoking a device just after it changed the encrypted group no longer left participants with conflicting conversation states. The membership handling was adjusted around that race.
- Camera frames at the requested size. The Mac camera bridge was corrected to deliver frames at the size requested by the video work and report the size actually received.
- Emoji and right-to-left selection. Emoji spacing and sizing were brought into line with the shared text foundation, and right-to-left selection highlighting was corrected. Font access was also made safe across the threads that use it.
- Autocorrection and secondary clicks. Autocorrection could fix a lone word, control characters stopped appearing as missing-character boxes and Control-click acted as a right-click.
- Reliable editing across drafts. Undo followed each draft instead of leaking between text fields. Composition guards, field placement on opening, click handling, wrapping limits and field menus were also brought into line with the shared text editor.
- Multiline messages keep a sensible width. A message with line breaks used its widest line to determine its width. It no longer grew as wide as all its lines laid end to end.
- Emoji remain visible at different sizes. Emoji missing from a requested bitmap size fell back to another available size. Spaces and digits after emoji also stopped taking inappropriate spacing from the emoji font.
- Composing text survives editing commands. While an input method was composing, Select All, Undo and Redo left it alone. Copy, Cut and Paste committed the composition first, and the composing text did not create partial undo entries.
In the works 3 changes · designs and groundwork
- Encrypted video prototype. The video prototype explored hardware H.264, encryption for each frame, recovery of missing packets and automatic rate control.
- Selecting text outside messages. A design was accepted for selecting and copying text in other parts of the interface, including informational surfaces.
- A more native chat direction. A study examined how the chat should feel in everyday use and informed the flatter row-based interface direction.
Under the hood 4 changes · tests, tools and the server
- A repeatable video-quality benchmark. A call benchmark was added to compare the video work with a FaceTime reference under repeatable conditions. The roadmap set a quality target for it.
- Encryption performance and implementation. Encryption performance was measured against the Mac’s system implementation, followed by a switch of bulk cryptography to AWS-LC and ring. The benchmark findings guided that choice.
- Reproducible graphics and portable tests. Generated graphics code was checked against its actual source content rather than checkout order. The store’s Mac-specific test cipher was also moved out of portable production code.