It has been a long time coming, and it’s finally here.
After rolling out the much needed voice-calling feature on their app slightly more than a year ago, cross-messaging platform WhatsApp has now officially launched one-on-one video-calling for its over 1 billion users.
The Facebook-owned chat service made the announcement on their blog earlier today.
“..we want to make these features available to everyone, not just those who can afford the most expensive new phones or live in countries with the best cellular networks,” WhatsApp said.
To initiate a video call, users just need to hit the call button (the phone icon) located at the top right corner of a conversation window. Select the “video call” option and then you’re good to go! Users can also switch between the front and back camera, mute the call, or hang up by simply pressing the red button.
The company didn’t elaborate on whether they will decide to add a group video-calling feature in the future, but this is certainly big news for WhatsApp, which has added a tonne of other fun features over the past year. The app is finally catching up with rival apps such as Facebook Messenger, Skype, FaceTime (limited to Apple users only), LINE, etc.
If you haven’t gotten the update, don’t panic. As per usual, WhatsApp’s new feature will be rolled out in stages so it’ll arrive in the coming days for all Android, iPhone, and Windows Phone devices.
Source: WhatsApp.