The most popular Android messaging service, Whatsapp Messenger, owned by Facebook, is testing a voice-calling service among a selected group of Android users.
Whatsapp Founder and Chief Executive, Jam Koum, previously stated during last year’s Mobile World Congress that a voice-calling feature is indeed in the pipeline to be tested out, but refrained from commenting further about the service’s details. The service became available to some Android users last week when a call icon became available in the latest version of the app.
According to Pradnesh Patil, a Reddit user from India, the service allows users to make voice calls to their contacts in the same way as they send messages. He first discovered the feature when his friend, a Whatsapp user himself, used it to call him. The new feature’s includes a speakerphone setting, a mute button, and the ability to send messages whilst making a call.
Whatsapp, with over 700 million users worldwide who share 30 billion messages every day, recently launched a web-based version, called Whatsapp Web. The voice calling service would only be available to Android users, with the availability of this new service to iPhone users remains unknown.
With the addition of this new feature, it appears the popular Skype, Viber, Tango, and WeChat would nervously be looking up their shoulders!
