Apple iPhone users will now have the option of
voice-calling on WhatsApp as well. The feature had already been rolled-out to Android
users.
According to the Apple itunes store, the latest iOS version of WhatsApp, version
2.12.1 brings voice-calling to the app. The itunes store description reads, “Call your friends and family
using WhatsApp for free, even if they’re in another country. WhatsApp calls use
your phone’s Internet connection rather than your cellular plan’s voice minutes.Data charges may apply. Note: WhatsApp
Calling is rolling out slowly over the next several weeks.”
While we updated
the app, the voice-calling option hasn’t yet gone live for us on the app, so it
could take several weeks for the complete roll-out to take place.
The other
interesting feature of this update is that WhatsApp is now
finally making use of iOS 8’s Extensions, which means that you can now directly
share a photo, video, links to WhatsApp from the Camera, Photos app in iOS.
Users can also
edit contacts directly from WhatsApp itself. The other feature is the ability to send multiple videos
and to crop and rotate the videos before sharing them. We also saw that you can
add a caption to a video before sending them to a user.
The latest update comes soon after WhatsApp
co-founder and CEO Jan Koum announced on Facebook that the messaging app now
has 800 million users.
Koum wrote on Facebook, “WhatsApp – now serving
800,000,000 monthly active users. Reminder for the press out there: active and
registered users are not the same thing.”
This is a big milestone
for WhatsApp, since the company had announced in January that it had
the 700 million monthly active users. That means in a span of over 4 months,
they added another 100 million monthly active users.
