Recently, we witnessed a massive surge in voice and video calls amongst users due to the Coronavirus pandemic when everyone is stuck at home. To keep up with the demand and to offer users another platform to reach their loved ones, WhatsApp has now started rolling out voice and video call support on its desktop apps.
WhatsApp announced the feature of adding this support for voice and video calls to its Windows and Mac apps via an official blog post. As per the post, the company saw a significant increase in the amount of audio and video calls last year. In fact, on New Year’s Eve, users broke the record for the most calls ever made in a single day. The number of audio and video calls rose to 1.4 billion on that day. This feature, as per WhatsApp, will make it easier to work with colleagues, free your hands, and see your loved ones on a bigger canvas.
We saw WhatsApp test this feature back in December last year. At that time, it was available to a limited number of users. Now to make this video-calling feature work seamlessly on bigger screens, the developers made sure to program the portrait and the landscape orientation to work with any screen size. In addition, during a video call, users can resize the call-window. Moreover, the call window always stays on top of the user’s window-stack.
Currently, the audio/video calling feature on the desktop apps only works with one-on-one calls. This, as per WhatsApp, is to make sure users get a reliable connection and high-quality call experience. The company states that they will be “expanding this feature to include group voice and video calls in the future”.