The Facebook-owned chat service has officially launched video calling for its over 1 billion users worldwide on iOS, Android and Windows Phone.
Its debut follows a series of reports from people who recently found the feature had been enabled in beta versions of WhatsApp on Android and on Windows Phone – an indication that a public debut was on the horizon.
CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg took to his account to announce the official release of the feature:
His Statement Reads:
Today we’re bringing video calling to WhatsApp. Voice calling has grown quickly, and video calling has been one of our community’s top requests. We’ve been working on it for a while to make sure it works even in places without a strong network. Enjoy!
To use the new feature, WhatsApp users can hit the call button in the top right corner of a conversation, which will bring up an overlaid interstitial asking if you want to voice or video call the friend or family member you’re chatting with. To kick off the video call, you simply select the “video call” option from this screen.
During the call itself, you can switch between the forward-facing and rear camera, mute the call or press the red button to hang up. It seems the user interface varies slightly on Android and iPhone in terms of where the picture-in-picture video feed is displayed, as well as the buttons’ size, lineup and placement.
WhatsApp already supports a number of standard features for communications apps, including group texting and voice calling. But the company says that video calling has remained one of its top feature requests from users.
