It’s no secret that Japanese chat app LINE has been eying expansion into the U.S.. The company’s focus on gaming was made all the more clear with a new funding program for mobile games that will be coming in September.
But there’s also another way for LINE to claim a large stake in the competitive U.S. market, and that just happens to be the company’s wide array of stickers featuring original LINE characters. LINE wants to make things as easy as possible for its users so it’s opted to include a new Suggest feature in version 4.6.0 of its calling and messaging app.
Exclusive to Android for now, the new Suggest feature works like most other search features, albeit in a form that improves the experience specifically toward the LINE audience. By entering text, you can find the sticker that most closely matches what you’re trying to say and how you’re trying to say it. If you choose not to use the feature, you can choose to turn it off.
LINE has also included an option to create a shortcut for LINE Premium Call, which allows you to engage with the service without having to open the LINE application. It will simply create a shortcut on your home screen, and it seems like it would be even more fitting on the Windows Phone version with the ability to pin to to home.
You can now use LINE Premium Call without having to open the application
Finally, the new update now lets you forward and share your chats and links with up to 10 people, groups, or chat rooms at once, up from the former one-at-a-time approach taken by the app in the past. This greatly enhances the ability to share experiences on the app, and could make for some interesting conversation that up until now was reserved to social networks like Facebook.
Get the latest LINE update via Google Play and let us know in the comments or in the Forums what you think of these new changes.