WhatsApp update lets people write and draw on their pictures, taking one Snapchat’s most fun features

There's another, potentially more important, thing been added for group chats

The Facebook and WhatsApp applications' icons are displayed on a smartphone on February 20, 2014 in Rome (AFP/Getty)

WhatsApp just got updated, with a huge range of new camera features for people to play with.

And they are primarily meant playfully – the new features include tools that let you draw on pictures before they sent, and allow you to add emoji to your pictures. They also include a new way of adding people to group conversations that will come as a saviour for anyone who’s used WhatsApp to organise anything.

The new camera features were previously announced and work incredibly similarly to Snapchat. They allow people to draw on a picture using a bright colour, add emoji or otherwise edit it, and are accessed from buttons on the top of the screen

As well as the drawing tools, the new camera includes a front-facing flash that uses the light of the camera, the ability to zoom in and out with one finger, and a quick way of switching cameras by double tapping.

The update is in the App Store now and might have automatically downloaded to people’s phones.

“Now you can draw or add text and emojis to photos and videos,” the release notes of the new iPhone update reads. “You can pick a brush size or font stye by dragging left on the color selector. When drawing, you can also pick from special brushes: the pixelate and color remover brushes.”

The pixelate brush appears to be especially useful: it means that it’s easy to send pictures while obscuring something that you might not want to make public. (In doing so it produces an effect of the kind seen on police images or documentaries, and doesn’t do so especially subtly.)

The update also brings another less exciting but potentially more useful feature. It now lets group admins add people to a group just by sharing a link with them – which can be found in the group info page – making it far easier simply to share a group with a set of people and have them easily join up.