Matching up to Apple’s intentions of releasing group FaceTime calling, WhatsApp has done justice to its promise of rolling out group video calling to all its users on iOS and Android which was previously announced during Facebook’s F8 developers conference in May.
As of today, all WhatsApp users be it on Android or iOS, will be able to use group calling with audio or video. The company also announced that users spend over 2 billion minutes in WhatsApp calls per day which can now be shared among four people at the same time.
The feature has already gone live and can be accessed through the latest update from the Google Play or the App Store for Android and iOS users respectively.
To start using the video calling feature, users will have to first start with a one-on-one video or audio call and add another user by tapping on the “add participant” button in the top right corner. It’s to be noted that WhatsApp currently only allows four people at once to be in a group call.
Upon receiving a video/voice call, a user will be greeted with a screen that displays the participants on a group call and the first screen will indicate that they were the one to add you to the group call. While users on a video call have an option to turn off video when on call, a voice call can’t be switched to video by any means. As usual, a group call will be listed under the ‘Calls’ tab like any other call.
WhatsApp assures that group calls on its platforms will always be end-to-end encrypted like the text messages and will reliably work on any network conditions around the world.