A few days ago, WhatsApp announced that it will increase the limit of participants in a group video call from four to eight. But now the company has officially rolled out the feature for iPhone users. This means that iPhone users can host video and voice calls for up to eight participants. Earlier, the users were only able to video call four participants at a time.
WhatsApp’s latest update for iOS users allows 8 participants in a group call and it also comes along with some visual improvements for iOS 13 users including the updated message action menu. iPhone users can go to the App Store and download the latest version of WhatsApp to get the new features. The Android users are yet to get this feature however it is available for Android beta users.
Earlier this week, WhatsApp’s Will Cathcart had confirmed that the iPhone and the Android users will get the new update this week.
Talking about the feature, WhatsApp’s parent company Facebook had revealed the both the voice and video calls are secured with end-to-end encryption. This means that nobody can listen or see any private conversation, not even WhatsApp.
WhatsApp launches the group call feature at a time when the entire world is under lockdown and the dependability on video calling platforms has increased. The ongoing pandemic has proved to be beneficial for many emerging video calling platforms like Zoom, Houseparty etc. However, soon after Zoom shot to instant fame, a host of security flaws were earthed by tech experts. Zoom took up many measures to improve its privacy policies but ended up getting banned by some of the top tech companies and some of the governments.However, despite the flawed privacy policies, Zoom witnessed an upward trend and its daily active users increased from 200 to 300 million users in April. But now that we officially have WhatsApp’s video calling feature, Zoom might face a huge competition from the messaging app.
So here is how you can set up a group call on WhatsApp
—If you want to chat with a group on WhatsApp, click on the call icon and WhatsApp will give you can option to add participants if the group consists of more then four people.
—If it is a group of four people, WhatsApp will automatically start the call upon hitting the call button.
—If you want to make a group call outside a group, tap on the call icon and add participants. You can add up to eight participants at a time.