WhatsApp is a popular way to send messages to other
smartphone users, no matter what platform they’re on – so popular, in
fact, that Facebook
in an effort to acquire it earlier this year. And while WhatsApp may do
text messaging quite well, sometimes we crave the sort of communication
you only get when speaking directly to a person. Voice call support has
been expected to come to the
for a while now, with early hints popping up months back, but now it
looks like the pieces might finally be falling into place, as the latest
Android WhatsApp release reveals just such a voice call framework. While the feature isn’t yet active, resources within the new Android
that arrived the other day provide enough hints at UI structure and
functionality to piece together the mock-ups you see above. The call
notification and history screens are pretty standard-looking Android
fare, and there also seem to be signs of call recorder functionality. At
least in this build, voice calls appear to be segregated from text
communication, but we don’t yet know if that’s how things will work in
the final release.
This is big progress, but there’s still no clear ETA for WhatsApp’s
voice mode. We’d like to believe that this new release means that it’s
undergoing internal testing, but even then, testing can take months.
Maybe once the
developers are a little further along, we’ll hear the announcement of a formal due
date, but for now, these teaser shots will just have do.
See below after the break.
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