WhatsApp hasn’t had the best of times lately, their decision to change data sharing policies are the primary driver for that. As a result, they’ve been left scrambling to save face and market. As part of this, they have decided to introduce video calling to their desktop app options.
This is a recognition from the messaging giant of the huge want and need for video calling through the pandemic:
Answering on a bigger screen makes it easier to work with colleagues, see your family more clearly on a bigger canvas, or free up your hands to move around a room while talking. To make desktop calling more useful, we made sure it works seamlessly for both portrait and landscape orientation, appears in a resizable standalone window on your computer screen, and is set to be always on top so you never lose your video chats in a browser tab or stack of open windows.
In their recent blog post, the WhatsApp team note a few items of particular note:
- This feature is only for one to one calls not group calling
- The call feature is only available through the official WhatsApp desktop app
- WhatsApp calls are end-to-end encyrpted, so not even WhatsApp themselves can see or hear call content
Moving forward it appears that WhatsApp may continue to lose some of its market shares. It seems clear though, they are committed to continuing building the platform and improving the user experience.
