An important thing happened – the super popular worldwide service for exchanging short messages on all devices, except for pans and kettles, WhatsApp, has been updated. To be precise – over the past three months, the service has experienced several important updates at once, but we have already talked about some of them, so I will focus on the very last one and will only briefly touch on the previous ones.
A lot of users have given a web version of WhatsApp and it was finally introduced in January. We talked about her here.
The web version of a service like WhatsApp is very good. For example, I have several chats in which I write daily and in large quantities: work chat, chat with friends and in general. So, typing something long and meaningful on a smartphone in these chats is horrible how inconvenient. And often it was the fact that I had to sit and type on my smartphone that stopped me from transmitting some important thoughts to my interlocutors via WhatsApp. It was easier to send them by e-mail or call, at worst, just not to type on a smartphone. I can't say that the service developers ended up offering an elegant solution, but something is better than nothing. The existing version of the web service works through a QR code in a clever combination with a specific smartphone, on which the Internet must be turned on (!), And the device itself must be tied with a 'ku er' code to the web service. The Internet on the smartphone is lost – the web service will be unavailable. The decision is very strange and I want to believe that at such a pace, at least in a couple of years, the company will rethink it, offering a normal separate client for Windows or at least just a separate website without the need to perform shamanic dances with a device binding and the requirement of his presence on the Internet to use the service. But I seem to be distracted.
Just recently, WhatsApp received another update and a new opportunity – to make free calls to all contacts who have the program installed in their smartphone. So far, the most recent version of WhatsApp with calls is available only to users Android, but the developers promise to add the function to the version of the application for iOS in the coming weeks. It doesn't matter if they add it or not, the main thing is that we, the owners Android, already have it. It doesn't matter what WhatsApp voice calls were the last to add to the popular messaging clients (other than Telegram). The bottom line is that it is WhatsApp that is the most popular in this bunch of programs and, who knows how seriously the addition of voice calls to this service will affect mobile operators, especially their revenues from users in roaming. I want to say that it seems to me that few of the smartphone owners have used voice calls in programs like Hangouts or Facebook Messenger, but with the addition of this feature to WhatsApp, everything can change.
The call function has been implemented simply – the program has a new 'calls' tab, where all the contacts you made calls are collected, and when you select the profile of any contact from the address book in WhatsApp, you now see not only the chat icon, but also the voice call icon.
During a WhatsApp conversation, you see the contact's photo and the time elapsed since the start of the call, you can turn on the speakerphone or turn off the microphone, and also quickly go to the chat window with the interlocutor, there are no other options. That is, everything is done very simply, literally at a basic level. The voice quality is nevertheless good, according to my feelings. Moreover, not only if you speak using a smartphone connected to a Wi-Fi network, but also if the device operates in 3G mode, the main thing is stable.
Total – a good feature in a very popular worldwide text messaging service can make it a very popular calling service as well. It seems to me for mobile operators who once lost their SMS revenue a long time ago, it's time to start worrying again. What do you think 'will take off or not take off'?