Tag Archives: Group Call

News

WhatsApp Calls Improved with New Features

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WhatsApp endeavors to improve its users call experience with an update bringing a host of new features.

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WhatsApp video calls now support up to 32 people, with notifications for new joinees. Image source: Meta

While it made its mark in the world of secure messaging, WhatsApp intends to attract more users to its voice and video call functions too. To kick things off, group video calls have gotten bigger with support for 32 persons in a single call. That is four times more than previously supported number of callers. If the calls get too chaotic, a new feature allows both direct messaging and muting of call participants. By long pressing on a participant, an enlarged interface appears to perform these functions without interrupting the call. Gathering users for a WhatsApp call is now easier with a new call link feature that can be shared to participants.

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Colourful waveforms with private message and mute features help manage large calls. Image source: Meta

Voice calls have received new features too. It is now easier to know who is talking in a large group call with colorful waveforms overlayed on the speaker. If someone pops into the group call, a notification now pops up to mark their arrival. iOS users will receive an exclusive, minimized in-call video screen feature. Users can now multitask on their devices without interrupting an ongoing video call. This feature is still currently under beta testing and will roll out in the new year.

Even with new features for WhatsApp calls, the commitment to privacy and security still remains. As always, the end-to-end encryption on all communication through the app by default remains in place. For more details on the new features, visit Improved Calling Features on WhatsApp | Meta (fb.com).

Lifestyle, Mobile, News

WhatsApp Now Allows You to Hide from Select Contacts and Mute Users in Group Calls 

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WhatsApp last week rolled out a new update to their app. No, they have not added the Communities functions yet. They are still testing the feature and they tell us that they are getting ready to launch it soon.  

The update we are referring to last week is mostly an update to their privacy feature and a few other functions. One of the newer things they have finally added to give you more control over your own privacy is the ability to limit the information you share with the people you choose to share or not share them with. You can now block specific contacts from viewing your WhatsApp profile photos and statuses.  

While this is a new feature to WhatsApp, Telegram users are already quite familiar with the function. In Addition to that, Telegram now also do not require users to register a phone number to be attached to the messenger account. WhatsApp still requires you to attach a phone number to your messenger account, which might not change for a while. 

There is more that WhatsApp has updated. While group calls have been a thing for a long time on WhatsApp, the more granular control to group admins has not been a feature. Users must be responsible for their own call controls. While this may not be a bad thing in regular social calls, users who wants to use WhatsApp as their main instrument in corporate calls might find it annoying.  

To address that, WhatsApp now allows hosts of group calls to mute other users. It could help a lot in muting users who might have forgotten to mute themselves in the call. Either that or if you do not want to listen to that person at all.  

Muting people in a smaller group call could be easy but monitoring a large group (up to 32 participants) can be rather difficult. Since you can only rely on the small screens of your smartphones, there is also a limit to how many people can fit in your display. WhatsApp is making the interface much easier to work with though for larger group calls. The indicator not only helps you monitor large group calls but also alert you of late joiners to the call.  

WhatsApp is looking to transform itself from being a simple messenger service to something that users can even rely on in a corporate setting. They announced the Communities feature a few months ago and that is still on track to becoming available to every WhatsApp user by the end of the year. It is now also a video calling and audio calling tool for its users as long as they get data or internet. Even with the backlash that was their privacy policy update last year, WhatsApp is still one of the most popular mobile messenger services we have come across and is still the messenger of choice by many Malaysians. The announcements made today are mentioned on WhatsApp’s Twitter account.