Back in 2015, Facebook owned WhatsApp rolled out voice calling feature for all its users. Then in November last year, the company rolled out the video calling feature. However, both these features were restricted to one-on-one calling. Well, if a recent report is anything to go by, then we will soon be able to have video and voice calls in group as the company has started testing this feature.
ℹ️ NOTE:
Group voice calls: confirmed ✅
Group video calls: partially confirmed ⚠️There are a lot of hidden references about group voice calls, but there is only one reference about group video calls.
But the quoted image should confirm both 😇— WABetaInfo (@WABetaInfo) October 21, 2017
According to WABetaInfo, who often shares details about new WhatsApp features, the group voice calls are pretty much confirmed, but, the group video calls are partially confirmed for now. WhatsApp recently announced its live location sharing feature, and in its blog post, the company shared an image (shown below, at the center) which represents live location sharing in a group. Well, that image also shows the video and voice call buttons in a group chat which also confirms that WhatsApp is indeed plans to roll out these features.
Well with group video and voice calling rolled out, WhatsApp users will be able to talk to multiple friends at once. At this time, there’s no information on the maximum number of people allowed in a single group video or voice call.
The 2.17.70 iOS update has very hidden references to group calls!
Before it was an internal news, now it's all confirmed 😇😇🎉
For example, WhatsApp 2.17.70 sends a request to the server to ask if the user you are calling is in another group call!— WABetaInfo (@WABetaInfo) October 21, 2017
Moreover, the references to group calls were found in update 2.17.20 for iOS, but, we are pretty sure that Android users too will get this group calling feature. Apart from this, WhatsApp for iOS in the future will also allow the group administrator to remove multiple participants from the group at once.
Speaking about the availability of group calling, it is said to be rolled out to the users next year. Aside from this, WhatsApp has also been testing the message recall feature from a long time now, hence, we expect that feature to be rolled out soon as well.
