WeChat dropped iOS version 8.0.74 this week, and if you are on Android you are still stuck on 8.0.72. That is two full versions behind. iOS WeChat has pushed four updates in under six weeks, which is either impressive or slightly unhinged depending on how you feel about app store review times.
The 8.0.74 update has one feature I have actually wanted for years: combo payment for peer-to-peer transfers. You can now mix and match payment sources when sending money to a friend. Zero balance plus one bank card, or WeChat Pay balance plus Lingqiantong. Up to two sources at once, and the app auto-calculates the split. It only works for direct transfers though, not red envelopes or merchant checkout. Still, this fixes the awkward dance of “let me top up first” or sending two separate transfers because one card does not have enough.
Another genuinely useful addition is native SIM login. If you are logging into WeChat on a device with your registered SIM card installed, you can skip passwords and verification codes entirely. The app checks the local number against the SIM and logs you in directly. I have not been able to test this myself since my account is on a Hong Kong number and my test device runs a mainland SIM, but the logic is sound. Fewer QR code scans when switching devices is always good.
The video call interface got a small rework too. There is now a “more” button that hides blur background and adds a landscape mode toggle. Turn it on and your video switches to horizontal, which gives a wider field of view. This is clearly aimed at people who use WeChat for work calls and want to show their desk or a whiteboard without holding the phone at a weird angle.
There is also a new “share as sticker” option when sending photos from the iOS Photos app to WeChat. It jumps straight into the sticker editor instead of dumping the image into chat. Small thing, but it saves a few taps if you make stickers regularly.
Plenty of features are still gray-released as usual. Stacked media messages, multi-select copy with sender names and timestamps, unread chat popups from double-tapping the WeChat tab, and AI avatar generation via Yuanbao. The gray release system means you either have these or you do not, and there is no pattern to who gets what first.
While iOS gets all the attention, WeChat HarmonyOS edition hit 8.0.18.33 this week with its own batch of changes. Foldables and tablets now get a split-column layout, which makes the app actually usable on a Mate X6 opened flat. The video account section gained a creator center, and there is a new “music echo” feature in the Listen tab that lets you record your voice for AI cover songs. Service accounts and subscription accounts are now separated in the contacts list, which should reduce the clutter if you follow a lot of brands.
On desktop, WeChat for Windows and Mac is now at 4.1.10 with a write-and-translate feature. Right-click the input box, pick your language, and type in Chinese while the app translates live into English, Japanese, Korean, or traditional Chinese. It is not as smooth as DeepL but it is built in, which counts for something when you are chatting with suppliers.
Meituan is also making moves. Starting June 1, new regulations require food delivery merchants to display whether they have dine-in seating and transparent kitchens. Meituan is rolling out tags for “has dine-in,” “no dine-in,” “food court stall,” and “mall counter” across Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Chengdu, and about nine other cities. The tags are verified against uploaded documents, not self-reported. Whether this actually changes where people order from is another question, but the transparency push is real.
Tencent Sogou Input Method launched cross-device clipboard sync this week too. Log into the same account on Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android, and copy-paste works across all of them. Images, text, links. iOS needs the keyboard to be active before the sync happens because of system restrictions. There is a size limit on large images and massive text blocks. An AI toolbar lets you polish, translate, split words, search, generate images, or flash-memorize copied text. HarmonyOS support is coming, according to the team.
My take? The combo payment and SIM login are the only two features here that will change daily habits for most users. Everything else is nice to have. The real story is the platform divergence. iOS WeChat is pulling ahead of Android by two versions, and HarmonyOS is on its own branch entirely at 8.0.18. Maintaining three codebases with different feature sets is expensive, and at some point something will break.