WhatsApp is keeping up with the Joneses, and has launched three visual-inspired features.

Look at me

WhatsApp has new bells and whistles for Filters, Albums, and Reply Shortcuts.

There are now five filters available to jazz up WhatsApp photos, videos, and GIFs. These are black and white, pop, cool, film, and chrome.

Power play

You can also now post more rapidly, without clogging up your feed. Post four or more videos or pics and WhatsApp will automatically bunch them into an album.

Your friends can swipe through the albums and check out your content in full screen.

Finally, you can also reply directly to individual messages contained within a thread.

Image is everything

The updates move WhatsApp away from text-based messaging, and towards visual content. And by extension, into competition with arch-rival Snapchat, and fellow Facebook stablemate Messenger.

Still, it’s a pretty good problem for Facebook to have – each of its messaging apps have over 1 billion users.

What’s your messaging app of choice? Let us know in the Comments.