We are now seeing a dramatic rise in video calls. As the world is going through an unwanted situation and trying to maintain social distancing, communicating with people requires some sort of video conference calls.
Google and Microsoft have their platforms for group video calling purposes, but Facebook-owned WhatsApp wants to join the game too.
The ZOOM data breach forces many users to leave the platform. Many governments and tech giants restricted their employees not to use the ZOOM video calling service.
So Facebook wants to capture the opportunity through the WhatsApp video calling feature. WABetaInfo reported that the new beta versions of WhatsApp support up to eight participants in a group video or voice call.
Now the stable version of WhatsApp allows up to 4 users in a group video or audio call. Earlier this month, WhatsApp started providing support for video calls of up to 4 people. Now it plans to double the number of participants from 4.
This new beta update is available for Android and iOS. This increased limit in group video and audio calls is rolling out to users having WhatsApp v2.20.133 beta for Android and WhatsApp v2.20.50.25 beta for iPhone.
WhatsApp feature tracker WABetaInfo posted on Twitter handle that “WhatsApp is rolling out the new limit of participants in group calls, for iOS and Android beta users!”
Note – To get this new update you need to have the most recent version of WhatsApp beta Android and iOS app.
If you have already updated the latest version and can find the feature then don’t worry. Just back up your chat history and reinstall WhatsApp if you don’t want to wait until the server rolls out the update.
Otherwise, wait for a few hours so that the server can send you the latest version. If you install the latest version of the WhatsApp beta app, then the feature would be there.
To place a group call on WhatsApp with the new feature, you need to open a group and click on the call button. If the group contains more than eight peoples, then WhatsApp will ask you to choose which contacts you want to call. If the group contains 8 or fewer participants then the call will be directly started. If any participants on that group aren’t saved in your phone’s contact list then it won’t be added in the call. To enjoy this feature all the participants have to install or update this latest version too.
Apple’s FaceTime video-calling feature supports 32 users while Facebook Messenger can connect up to 50 people in a call.
This is a welcome move from WhatsApp as people need this feature these days. WhatsApp would roll out this new update to a stable version soon. Currently, it is available in the beta version of the app.