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WhatsApp has been expanding its presence on desktop systems for some time now, with Meta developers working hard to bring the experience as close to using the messenger on the phone. As a part of those efforts, WhatsApp has now updated their app for Mac desktops and laptops, introducing group calling feature for those systems.
In the early part of 2023, WhatsApp had introduced a new app for Windows machines, adding a host of new features to the app. With that update, Windows users got access to the group video calling feature, better syncing across devices, and new linking features as well. At the time, the Mac app was in development and being tested as a beta.
https://twitter.com/WhatsApp/status/1696560353553928230?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Now, Meta has gone ahead and introduced those features on their Mac app, adding a bunch of new calling-related features as well! The new group calling feature will allow users to join video calls with up to eight people and voice calls with the number of people in the call going all the way up to 32. Additionally, users will now be able to see their call history and also receive call notifications even when the app is not running on their system.
Apart from that, to make the user experience closer to some of the other messengers that were developed from the ground up, Meta has now enabled the dragging and dropping of files directly into the chatbox for Mac users. And, if you want to view your chat history on your Mac, you can go further back than you could ever in the previous versions of the app!
In their official release about the new Mac app, Meta noted that these features are being introduced to improve the experience on large screens. The statement said, “The app is redesigned to be familiar to Mac users, helping you get more done faster when using WhatsApp on a large screen.”
With these new features coming in, it will definitely improve the user experience of people running WhatsApp on Apple desktops and laptops. We could even see a shift of professional workflows to WhatsApp, which in turn could motivate the developers at Meta to introduce such updates earlier than what they do right now.