WhatsApp has started rolling out a new joinable calls feature which will let you jump onto group calls after they’ve started.
According to theverge.com, this new feature means you’ll be able to join a call with your friends and family whenever you’re ready, kind of like what you can do with a group Zoom or Google Meet call right now.
The upgrade also brings an easy way to let you drop-off and re-join a group WhatsApp call as long as the call is still ongoing. Up until now, WhatsApp users were not given an intuitive option to join a group call.
However, participants in an active call could add members during a voice or video call on the platform.
Joinable calls reduce the burden of answering a group call as it starts and bring the spontaneity and ease of in-person conversations to group calling on WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned company said in a blog post.
To join an ongoing group call even if it was missed originally, a user will hit a Tap to join option in the call log on WhatsApp.
According to gadgets.ndtv.com, WhatsApp has also created a new call info screen that will allow users to see all users that have been invited for the conversation but not yet joined. A user can also look at the active participants of the call from the call info screen instead of getting their details after joining the call.
Furthermore, the call info screen has an Ignore button to let you ignore a call and join it later from the Calls tab in WhatsApp.
WhatsApp has not provided exact details on when you'll get joinable calls on your device. However, since the update has started rolling out, it should arrive on the latest versions of WhatsApp for Android and iOS soon.
In 2018, WhatsApp introduced group calling to its platform to allow users to communicate with multiple users simultaneously.
The Covid-19 pandemic increased the adoption of group calls among users due to social distancing guidelines; that growth pushed WhatsApp to increase group calling from four to up to eight members at once, gadgets.ndtv.com wrote in an article.
Initial access for multi-device is available now
According to wabeta.com, WhatsApp has started to roll out multi-device for specific beta testers on WhatsApp beta for Android and iOS.
WhatsApp Web, WhatsApp Desktop and Portal can work without an active Internet connection on your mobile phone. This first version of multi-device does not support another additional phone, but it’s possible they will provide the support in the future, seeing that WhatsApp was working on a log out option on linked mobile devices.
It’s possible to link up to 4 devices to your WhatsApp account and a user can video call across these devices, however, they cannot message or call people that have an outdated WhatsApp version installed, from WhatsApp Web/Desktop or Portal, Wabeta wrote in a blog post.
If you want to discover if you’re one of the lucky users to test this feature, just open WhatsApp Web/Desktop Settings from your iPhone or Android device (WhatsApp might rename it to Linked devices in the meantime, but this does not mean you have received the feature) and, if the feature is enabled for your WhatsApp account, you will see a new row called 'Multi-device beta'.