In an effort to make group calls smoother and easier, the popular Meta-owned messaging platform WhatsApp has announced that a host of features will soon be rolled out. Among them is the feature wherein users can mute other participants on group calls, to avoid background chatter on the call.
> WhatsApp announced that when a new person joins an already ongoing WhatsApp audio call, a banner with their name will appear on your phone screen to notify you. “When someone new joins a group voice call and is offscreen, you will see a banner notification saying, “X joined the call”. This way, you will know when a new person joins and who they are, even if you are on a big call and the person is not one of the names fixed on your screen,” WhatsApp said in a statement.
> The company will also roll out a feature wherein users can message individual participants of a group call more easily, with options to message or mute them when you tap on their name during the call. WhatsApp allows up to 32 people to join a group call.
> WhatsApp also said that more users can now send hands-free voice notes, wherein users can hold down the microphone icon and swipe up to lock it. Once you have finished recording the message, tap the button to send it.
> Users can now play their voice notes before sending them. Users will have the option of listening to their voice notes before sending them or pause while recording, in case of any interruptions. You can also listen to voice notes even outside the chat. You can also continue to listen to a paused voice note from where you left off even after exiting the chat and coming back to it, WhatsApp has said.
In May this year, WhatsApp rolled out emoji reactions to messages and said that more reactions will be available in the future. It also increased the limit on the size of files that you can send on WhatsApp, from 100 MB to 2 GB. Further, it also announced that soon, up to 512 people will be allowed to join groups, up from the previous 256.