WhatsApp: voice and video calls are now available for desktop app

WhatsApp, the famous instant messaging service owned by the social network Facebook from 2014, continues to launch important news. Following the introduction of the biometric recognition for WhatsApp web and desktop and the new feature of disappearing messages (that will automatically delete after seven days), few day ago, the team announced, through its blog, that voice and video calls are now available on WhatsApp’s desktop app. 

According to the official blog, on December 31 2020, the application recorded about 1.4 billion voice and video calls made in a single day. Currently, the new service is only available from desktop, but there is a good chance that, in the future, it will also be accessible from the browser version of the service. In addition, for now all users can enjoy only one-to-one calls and video calls, but as the team said: “We will be expanding this feature to include group voice and video calls in the future”. 

The only two requirements needed to make voice and video calls via the WhatsApp Desktop application are: to have Windows 10 64-bit version 1903 and newer for PCs users or OS 10.13 and newer for Macs users. All calls have been created to work for both portrait and landscape orientation and furthermore, the call screen has been designed to appear in a standalone window so that the user can resize it and always keep it in the foreground on its desktop. 

Therefore, it is a really great news for all WhatsApp users, but a little less great for its competitors such as Zoom who will soon have to deal with a rather fearsome rival. Zoom is the leading web platform for work calls, webinars, video conferences and online courses which in 2020 recorded a significant increase in the number of active users every day and closed the year with a profit of over 600 million dollars. Now the war between the two services is likely to be started. 

“With so many people still apart from their loved ones, and adjusting to new ways of working, we want conversations on WhatsApp to feel as close to in-person as possible, regardless of where you are in the world or the tech you’re using”, said the WhatsApp team. “We hope people enjoy private and secure desktop calling with their friends and families”.