WhatsApp stickers on the way, and artists can create their own

If the combination of words, emoji and GIFs are just not enough to express yourself properly in online chats, WhatsApp stickers aim to fill the gap …

The company said that it is creating its own WhatsApp sticker packs, and is encouraging artists to do the same.

From emoji and camera features to Status and animated GIFs, we’re always looking to add new features that make communicating with friends and family on WhatsApp easy and fun. Today, we’re excited to introduce a new way for people to express themselves with stickers.

Whether with a smiling teacup or a crying broken heart, stickers help you share your feelings in a way that you can’t always express with words. To start, we’re launching sticker packs created by our designers at WhatsApp and a selection of stickers from other artists.

We’ve also added support for third-party sticker packs to allow designers and developers around the world to create stickers for WhatsApp. To do this, we’ve included a set of APIs and interfaces that allow you to build sticker apps that add stickers to WhatsApp on Android or iOS. You can publish your sticker app like any other app to the Google Play Store or Apple App Store, and users who download and install your app will be able to start sending those stickers right from within WhatsApp. You can learn more about creating your own sticker apps for WhatsApp here.

The rollout is a gradual one, the company saying that they will be available on both iPhone and Android ‘over the coming weeks.’ Once they are available, you’ll tap the sticker button to select – and add new sticker packs by tapping the plus icon.

Gadgets 360 tried an Android beta version and was able to provide more details on how WhatsApp stickers work.

To use a sticker in one of your chats, you need to tap the emoji button from the chat bar and then tap the stickers icon from the bottom bar. There is there a history tab available to show all the previously used stickers in one place. Similarly, there is a favourites tab that includes all the stickers that you’ve marked as favourite by pressing the star option after selecting your favourite sticker in a particular chat. WhatsApp has also provided a sticker category tab from where you can select the available stickers. Furthermore, there is a plus button that takes you directly to the Stickers Store.

You can visit the Stickers Store to find appropriate sticker packs for your chats. There is an All Stickers tab that lists all the available sticker packs. You can pick one of the sticker packs. You just need to hit the download button available on the right of the sticker pack to download it on your device. Also, you can tap any of the listed sticker packs to view all its available stickers. You can additionally view all the downloaded stickers by tapping the My Stickers tab from the Stickers Store. Moreover, you can download sticker packs other than the ones listed on the Stickers Store by tapping the Get More Stickers button from the bottom of the All Stickers tab.

WhatsApp stickers are also available on the web, once you’ve added them in the app.

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