WhatsApp is today rolling out joinable calls for group chats. The new feature means users can join a group call, even after it’s started. Joinable calls lessen the burden of answering a group call as it starts, making it easier to hop into a chat as though the conversation was in-person and already flowing. It follows what has been a bumper season of updates for the messaging app, with special mention to its recent voice message improvements that allow you to pause and resume a voice message.
With group calling growing in popularity amongst a wide range of demographics, WhatsApp believes that integrating joinable calls will provide its users with a new spontaneous way to connect with their family and friends groups, which is always desirable considering how many group chats lie idle in your app.
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WhatsApp is always looking to refine the user experience throughout the messaging platform. On its official blog, WhatsApp announced the new feature that lets people connect spontaneously with their groups. The company is, once again, smoothening out lapses in user functionality and making things more circular-knit. We've seen this invariably over the past year, where the impetus of many of the app's myriad updates rests in upgrading how users interact with the different components of the app. Seamless integration is the phrase that comes to mind.
So, then, comes this new ability to hop onto calls with your groups at any time, doing so effortlessly and directly from the chat view with one click. When you join the call, a notification will say the name of the group instead of participant names, and only people who are part of the group can join the call. To avoid confusion, the call will show in the chat list, so people can see which groups have ongoing calls immediately after opening the app.
"Some of the best conversations happen when you least expect it," says WhatsApp, and it believes that the new feature will dial up the impromptu nature of conversation across the app, even letting users drop off and re-join so long as the call is still active.
The update is said to be under active development for beta testers at present. There's no exact detail on when we might expect the feature to release, but it usually doesn't take long to land on the best iPhone and best Android phones after the beta testing period ends, given that WhatsApp decided to release it.
