WhatsApp, the popular social media platform owned by Meta, has announced a new feature that allows users to share their screens during video calls. This latest addition is part of Meta’s strategy to compete with well-established video-conferencing platforms such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Skype. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg took to his Facebook and Instagram profiles to share the news with the public.
Enhanced Video Calling Experience
The screen sharing feature on WhatsApp provides users with a more dynamic and interactive video calling experience. The interface of this new feature, as shown by Zuckerberg, resembles that of Google Meet or Zoom. The shared screen occupies a significant portion of the display, while the video call participants appear in small rectangular tiles on the right side.
Easy Sharing Process
To share their screen, WhatsApp users simply need to press the arrow icon, which represents the ‘share’ option. This intuitive design makes it convenient for users to showcase their content or navigate through various applications while on a video call. The addition of landscape mode further enhances the legibility of texts and graphics, particularly on smartphones, which are the most commonly used devices for WhatsApp.
Global Accessibility
While the screen sharing feature has been available to Android beta testers for a few weeks, Meta is gradually making it accessible to all users worldwide. The company has started rolling out the feature on iOS, Android, and Windows devices, so if it is not immediately available to you, rest assured that it will be accessible soon. Meta intends to introduce these features in a phased manner to ensure a smooth user experience for everyone.
In addition to screen sharing, WhatsApp has recently introduced the ability to share short video messages on the platform. By tapping the microphone icon, which is traditionally used for sending voice messages, users can now switch to a video camera icon with a single tap. This feature enables users to send video messages of up to 60 seconds, which are displayed in a circular format within the chat.
WhatsApp’s latest screen sharing feature marks another milestone in the platform’s evolution. With Meta’s ongoing efforts to enhance the user experience and compete with established video-conferencing platforms, users can expect further innovations and improvements in the future. Whether it is sharing screens during video calls or sending short video messages, WhatsApp continues to provide its users with an increasingly immersive and versatile communication platform.
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