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WhatsApp, Used By Over One Billion People, Gets Video Calling Feature (engadget.com)
After disrupting how people text in many regions of the world, and changing how people make voice calls, Facebook-owned instant app WhatsApp today announced it is bringing "fully encrypted" video calling feature. From a report on Engadget: Now, the Facebook-owned company is ready to unleash video calls on everybody and in the coming days will roll out the feature to iOS, Android and Windows devices. When the feature is activated, open a chat and select the phone icon. You'll then be given an option to place a voice or video call. When we tested the feature, we found that voice and video quality was excellent over strong WiFi, but your mileage may vary if you're connecting via a mobile or slower broadband connection. While Facebook Messenger users have enjoyed voice calls for over a year and a half, many popular messaging apps like still don't offer the feature. With over one billion users, WhatsApp's video calls can connect people all over the world, regardless of their choice of mobile operating system, allowing it stay ahead of apps like Google's Allo.Though video calling feature has existed on apps such as Skype for years, what gives WhatsApp an advantage is its sheer user base. In comparison to Skype, which has about 300 million active users, WhatsApp has over one billion.
Actually, WhatsApp picked up since it is a platform independent messaging system that allows one to send not just text, but also photos and brief videos through its service. One can also make voice calls. Now, video calls are added. This third one is big, since up to now, one could only make video calls on FaceTime, Skype and Duo. Of these 3, FaceTime is iOS only, Duo is Android and iOS only and Skype too is limited. WhatsApp in the meantime is there on many more platforms.
What I hope is - WhatsApp makes this feature available on all its platforms, not just iOS (the way it enabled only the iOS version for GIF files).