WhatsApp now lets you add up to 32 participants to group voice calls, a step on its roadmap to expansion into WhatsApp Communities feature. This is among a host of new features that the social media messaging platform is said to be bringing out.
WhatsApp last increased the group call participation limit in 2020. Other features that are reportedly under development or in the beta testing stage include a new caption view when sending media and the ability to include more recipients within a chat thread, a redesigned location sticker, an option to save disappearing messages, more emojis for message reactions, and advanced settings to manage your privacy settings.
Users will now be able to add up to 32 participants during voice calls in WhatsApp, as spotted on the App Store changelog as well as on the FAQ page of Android and iPhone on the WhatsApp site. In April 2020, WhatsApp had doubled the group voice call participation limit to eight from the earlier limit of four. To access the latest feature, users will have to update to the latest version of WhatsApp on their devices, that is, v22.8.80 on iPhone and v2.22.9.73 on Android.
As per the WhatsApp v22.8.80 for iPhone changelog on the App Store, the group voice call interface update brings with it a social audio layout, speaker highlight, and waveforms, as seen in the story image above. The changelog also details updated designs for voice message bubbles and info screens for contacts and groups, apart from other small improvements such as accessing your favourited media in gallery. To recall, WhatsApp announced the upcoming group voice call participant limit increase when it announced its expansion for Groups – WhatsApp Communities – last week.
It is interesting to note that one of WhatsApp’s biggest competitors, Telegram, doesn’t have a limit to the number of participants on a group voice call.
In the meanwhile, as we mentioned, several potential new features have been spotted in beta updates by WhatsApp beta tracker WABetaInfo. The first of these, spotted in beta v2.22.10.6 for Android, WhatsApp is said to be refining the caption view with a focus on the recipients. The feature is said to be rolling out to select beta testers only for now. Earlier, users couldn’t select different recipients while sending a media from a chat. The option was restricted to when you were using the camera tab. The new update will let users send photo, video, or GIF to contacts within their chat thread and you can now select other people as recipients. The messaging platform from Meta has also redesigned the way you choose the audience for your status updates. WhatsApp is now presenting a view where the users can conveniently pick a different audience for their status updates. The feature is yet to rollout widely.