We’ve had a lot of WhatsApp activity recently. From the proposed introduction of ads to the status tab to a brand-new way to share your contact details with new friends, big changes are coming to the popular messaging service. We’ve even seen the strange quirk that WhatsApp will soon start ranking your friends! We now have more WhatsApp news for you that will be interesting to anybody who is involved in at least one group chat.
WhatsApp has introduced a new group call feature on iOS
Group chats have become an integral part of the WhatsApp experience. We are all now members of many different types of WhatsApp group chat: the family group, the sports practice group, the vacation planning group, the cool new films/TV series group, etc. With so many WhatsApp group chats flying around, some people are getting tired of the constant pings they receive.
One solution to receiving too many text messages is to call more. Thanks to a leak by the guys at WABetaInfo, it looks like WhatsApp is working on a way to allow us to call more while also benefiting from the dynamic we get from group chats. A new group call button has been spotted in the latest beta version of WhatsApp for iOS.
WhatsApp users who have the beta version for iOS installed on their phone will see a new group call button in their group chats. According to WABetaInfo, “When tapped, WhatsApp will present in a sheet a list of all possible participants you can start a call with… only 4 participants can be in a group call, you can only select 3 participants.”
This means that when the feature lands on your phone, you’ll be able to make group calls with up to three people from your contact list. Attempting to add more than three people to a call will set off an alert, warning you that three contacts plus yourself is the maximum amount you can add to a group call.
How to try new features on WhatsApp before anybody else
Learn HowThis new group call functionality marks an improvement over past attempts to add group calls to WhatsApp. In the past, you could only activate a group call after you’d started a private call, which was annoying, to say the least. The new mode makes it easier to start group calls directly and to easily decide whether to perform a group voice or video call.
At the moment, the feature is only available on iOS and only for users with the beta installed on their device. Group calls are not available on Android yet, but they will be available in the future.
