On 14th of November 2018 WhatsApp launched a new feature that allows the application to rank friends on your contact list in order of how frequent you interact with them and the type of content you share with them.
The ranking feature will automatically arrange your contact list by placing your favourite friends status updates to the top of the list. Your favorite contact will be determined by how often you interact with the person hence when you are viewing status updates that will appear first and continue in that order to the least contact you interact with making it easy for you to be able to find your favourite contact. This data will be used in the status section showing you updates of the people it thinks you want to see at the top.
According to WABetainfo, the feature analyzes, how much you chat, if you are in the same WhatsApp groups and also how many times you mention them to others. It also takes the assumption that a person you frequently call is someone you care about hence their rankings will go up.
Rankings will be determined by the phone locally in that if you delete the app or change the phone, it will go back to the chronological layout as it relearns your ranking system. This will change how you view status currently where the most recent status update comes first.
The feature was enabled on 14th November so for any IOS user who has the version 2.18.102.4 beta installed will take time before the App is able to rank the contacts. currently the status should be in chronological order.
