LONDON: The wait is over as the voice calling feature of WhatsApp is finally released for all the phones across the planet.
The feature has been awaited by many, and started rolling out early last month, on a region to region basis.
However it had been out since mid February when a few users were randomly selected and this feature was given to them for bug-testing.
Earlier there used to be an invite system, which used to work like this: If you had a specific build of WhatsApp, there were various such builds, and on having that particular build, if you get a call on WhatsApp from someone who has WhatsApp calling enabled, after receiving that call, you will also be able to make calls.
However, this feature was quickly rolled back and then for a long while only the people who had calling had the feature, and they were not able to ‘invite’ other people. If I had a calling feature and you wanted the invite, even if you had the specific build of WhatsApp and I called you, you won’t be getting the feature activated. That was done because there were suddenly a large number of people who had this feature without the intent of the company being so.
This lead to a number of online scams as people started coming out with fake websites and malicious apps and bots that would affect your computer and phones and steal your data, and they were all named something like ‘click here to get/enable/activate WhatsApp calling feature’.
WhatsApp, with its 1 billion downloads is the number one name in the world of internet messaging and communication, and it has finally decided to come out with the update where all the users of the app can now get the voice calling feature.
Invites are no longer needed, and the update has been worldwide, which means that every phone on the face of this planet which has WhatsApp installed is now able to connect with other phones which have WhatsApp installed via voice calling!