Facebook-owned WhatsApp has introduced a new feature this week. Earlier in 2017, WhatsApp introduced a new feature which allowed the users to make voice and video calls among the users. In F8 Developer Conference which was held in May, WhatsApp announced that they will be bringing the group calls feature later this year. Today, WhatsApp announced that the feature is live for both the Android and iOS users globally. With the new feature, users can now make video and voice calls with up to 4 people together.
When WhatsApp introduced voice calls, it was a success for the company. Later after 2 years, WhatsApp came up with video calls to support the system. Now, WhatsApp claims that they make around 2 billion minutes of calls every day. WhatsApp has nearly 1.5 billion active users monthly.
WhatsApp Group Calls
From today, users can now make group voice and video calls easily with up to 4 people together. There is an ‘Add Participant’ button for the users which enables them to add people to the calls. For now, the group calls supports up to 4 people together. Along with this, WhatsApp said that just like the other chats and calls on the app, the group calls are also end-to-end encrypted. The encryption system is a bonus for the users as many calling apps do not provide it.
WhatsApp claims that the group call is built well enough to work even in low network conditions. It says that the people can use the calling system to talk with their friends or family from far away as long as the people involved are online.
Verdict
With such a huge number of users, WhatsApp needs to meet with the standard to the users. It has around 1.5 billion monthly users and most of them are active every day on the platform. Since WhatsApp has claimed that they make 2 billion minutes of calls every day, the new group call feature is only going to increase that. People enjoy talking in groups. If it is a free voice or video calls with minimal data usage, everyone will be eager to use it. It will increase the server load on WhatsApp server and they need to handle it well enough for the user convenience.
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Along with that, WhatsApp has said that the calls will be encrypted. If we look out at other platforms which provides group calls, none of them is encrypted. For example, Telegram, a leading message app has the encryption feature only for chats and not for the calls. In this sense, WhatsApp providing people with encrypted group calls is a boost for the people. If the system works well even in bad network conditions, it is only going to increase the trust of users on the platform. If so, WhatsApp will have a larger user base who will shift from other applications to come onto the same platform.
