Last month we learned that WhatsApp started testing a green dot on Android to indicate that a contact is online. The Meta-owned company has now started testing this feature on iOS as well.
This revelation comes from the folks at WABetaInfo, who discovered the development on beta version 26.26.10.72 of WhatsApp for iOS.
If you are a WhatsApp beta user on iOS with the latest version of the app installed, you’ll see a small green circle at the bottom-right of a contact’s photo in the “Contact info” screen when the contact is online. This works in real-time, so the green circle will disappear when the contact is no longer online.
WABetaInfo reports that the “Contact info” screen, opened by tapping a contact’s photo, is the only place the green dot is displayed for now. In our opinion, it would have been more useful if WhatsApp displayed it in the chats list and Chats tab.
It’s also worth noting that WhatsApp applies the same privacy rules to the green dot as it does to last seen and online status, meaning that if a user has chosen to hide their last seen and online status from others, the green dot won’t be visible either.
This green dot online status indicator feature is currently only available to some beta users on both Android and iOS, and it’s unclear when WhatsApp will release it publicly for all users.
