WhatsApp update on iOS lets beta users send HD photos. How it works

The HD photos feature has been rolled out for specific beta users, reported WABetaInfo that tracks WhatsApp updates. To check if the feature is available to you, go to WhatsApp Settings, then look for ‘Media Upload Quality’ under under ‘Storage and Data’. If it’s there, then the feature has been enable for your WhatsApp beta account.

The feature will be rolled out for some more users next week. So if you haven’t got it yet, it might happen in a few days.

And it works in the same manner as Android. Tapping on the ‘Media Upload Quality’ option brings up three options – Auto (recommended), Best quality and Data saver. The second option is the one to choose for sending HD photos.

Selecting he ‘Best quality’ option does not mean that WhatsApp will send the image with the original quality, but the image compression algorithm would maintain 80 per cent of image quality. If the image resolution is bigger than 2048×2048, it might be resized.

WhatsApp typically compresses images to 70 per cent of the original quality and large images are always compressed.

Remember, this is only the beta version and WhatsApp is still testing the image compression algorithm so the percentage of original quality maintained in the sent image could be changes in future updates.

Notably, the sending quality images would take more data and time. If you have a limited data plan, then ‘Data saver’ option will compress the image more. It will take a toll on the quality though.

These options pertain only to the images sent in chats, and not those posted as WhatsApp stories as they use a different compression rules.