If you’ve ever accidentally pressed the phone icon at the top of your phone screen in a huge WhatsApp group chat, you’ll know the pain of mistakenly calling scores of people all at the same time, unwittingly initiating mass confusion by butt dial.
WhatsApp seems to have acknowledged this because the firm has started rolling out a new free software update for all its users that will allow you to select call participants when you make a call from a group chat. This is great news, even if it just means if you accidentally press the button when tapping about the chat, it won’t automatically call everyone.
Instead, you’ll be presented with a screen where you can tap to select who in the group you want your group call placed to. If you’ve tapped my mistake, social faux pas averted.
WhatsApp sees it differently, of course.
“Now when you start a call from a group chat, you can select specific participants so you call exactly who you want without disrupting the rest. Ideal for planning surprise parties or presents”, the firm said in a press release.
Available for all WhatsApp users on iPhone and Android, the update also includes other changes to how calls are made on the app.
On the fun side of things, you will get access to ten new video call effects, such as being able to add puppy ears to yourself, set you in an underwater scene or give you a virtual mic to pretend to sing into.
Staying with video chats, on mobile and desktop WhatsApp is also claiming that these visual calls are now “more reliable” with a higher resolution video quality for both one-on-one and group calls. WhatsApp doesn’t quantify how it has done this, so we will have to take their word for it.
Finally, WhatsApp said that calling on its desktop app has improved. By the looks of it, things are now easier to navigate.
“Now when you click the calls tab on the WhatsApp desktop app, you’ll easily find everything you need to start a call, create a call link, or dial a number directly,” WhatsApp said.
WhatsApp is on a bit of a march when it comes to free updates of late. The Meta-owned app recently took away the long-standing ‘typing’ indicator, replacing it with the speech bubble and three dot animation that shows someone is typing, similar to Apple’s iMessage and Facebook Messenger.
Prior to that, WhatsApp introduced transcriptions for voice notes so now you can read someone’s audio note if you’re not in an environment where you can play the audio out loud on your phone’s speakers.
