The desktop version of WhatsApp for Windows and Mac is now getting one-on-one voice and video calling. Until recently, the Facebook -owned messaging service only offered the feature on its mobile app.
But earlier this year, it began testing it for desktop users as well. Initially, a small number of select users saw chat and video chat icons marked “Beta.” Now that the feature is officially available for desktop, everyone can use it whenever they want to talk to their contacts on a bigger screen.
In its announcement, the service said it has seen “significant increases in people calling each other on WhatsApp, often for long-duration conversations” over the past year. This is not surprising, as people have been using services more since the pandemicto stay in touch with friends and family while confined to their homes. “With so many people living apart from even their loved ones and trying to adapt to new ways of working, we want conversations on WhatsApp to be as close to the person as possible, no matter where you are in the world or the technology you use,” the announcement continued.
By offering video calls on a larger screen in particular, users will be able to see their loved ones more clearly. It will also free up their hands so they can move around or do other things while they are having conversations. WhatsApp voice and video calls for work on desktop can be displayed in portrait and landscape mode, as individual users, and can change the size of the icons and always appear on top of other open applications.
For now, only one-on-one end-to-end encrypted calls are available, in an effort to ensure they work perfectly on desktop computers. However, WhatsApp promises to expand the featureto include group and video calls in the future.
