The spread of COVID-19 has been a boon for the tech sector. With stay-at-home orders in place and many individuals working from home, tech services are being revitalized as businesses and consumers seek the tools to satisfy their evolving daily needs.
For WhatsApp, this has created a unique opportunity to address certain limitations within the platform. Fortunately, the WhatsApp team is aware of these constraints and is in the process of increasing group video call limits to eight people, according to WABetaInfo.com.
This much-needed improvement will initially be available through a beta version of the app. While this upgrade is a welcome improvement, WhatsApp still falls short of its rivals. For example, Microsoft Teams allows up to 20 people in a private video chat and 250 people in a meeting, and Zoom’s free plan allows up to 100 participants.
Meanwhile, WhatsApp will handle only eight video-call participants once this update goes into effect.
WhatsApp is also reportedly working on multi-device support, which would allow the use of larger screens for video conferences. Though it’s unclear how WhatsApp would accomplish such a feat since it stores messages locally on a user’s device and not on remote servers.
That said, if WhatsApp was to achieve true multi-device support without compromising security, it could be a game-changer for group video calls.
