A month after we reported that WhatsApp was testing voice calling for some users in India on an invite-only basis, a new report from IndiaToday says that all Android users are likely to see this feature on their phones. The beta feature will be rolled out to all users using the latest version of WhatsApp (v 2.11.561). Apparently, some users have begun receiving this feature on their Android phones. Y U No Call? We’d reported previously that only those users who get a call through an “activated” voice call feature WhatsApp account will get to access the feature. This seems to be the case even at the time of writing this. Despite being updated to WhatsApp’s latest version, we cannot access the feature unless someone with the activated feature “invites” us to use it. Also, once a user receives a call from an activated phone, their WhatsApp interface will change to show chats, contacts and calls. Android Police reports that when someone with an activated WhatsApp account places a call to another user and the call goes unanswered, the feature will not be activated on the second user’s phone. WhatsApp has not said anything about this feature officially and neither is there any word on the feature for iOS or other platforms. A search for “voice calls” in the WhatsApp FAQ did not return any results at the time of writing. What’s taking so long? We wonder why WhatsApp is taking long to adopt a VoIP feature. Other messaging apps…
