WhatsApp announced Thursday the introduction of voice and video calls into its desktop applications for Mac and PC, expanding the ways in which you can create the illusion of meaningful human interaction in this time of crushing isolation.
“With so many people still separated from their loved ones and adapting to new ways of working, we want conversations on WhatsApp to feel as close to the person as possible, regardless of where they are in the world or what technology they are in. is found. using ”, the owner of WhatsApp Facebook Announced in his press release, a reminder that simply talking to another human being face to face with reckless abandon could still kill him.
This is good news for those of us who are so deeply exhausted from the past year that even holding a phone seems impossible: WhatsApp’s new desktop calling functionality “makes it easier to work with colleagues, see your family with more clarity on a larger canvas or free your hands to move around a room while talking, ”the company said. Deep down you know this is no different than using Google Meet or Zoom or FaceTime or any of the many other apps that do the exact same thing, but that word “easier” is so appealing right now that you appreciate the effort to do this. . It seems like something to be happy about at least.
And if you’re worried that WhatsApp (and, by extension, Facebook) hears you sobbing uncontrollably while explaining to your mom in a video chat that yes, you’ve been calling Walgreens every 15 minutes to see if they have any. the leftover vaccines they need to inject into someone’s arm before they expire and are thrown away right next to the rest of their life, but no, they don’t have any available yet, fear not! “Voice and video calls on WhatsApp are end-to-end encrypted, so WhatsApp cannot hear or see them, whether you call from your phone or your computer,” the press release reads.
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Voice and video calls on WhatsApp desktop applications, available for download here, are currently limited to one-on-one conversations, but the company promises that it plans to expand the feature to group chats in the future, a period of time that is still enjoyable to think about or has become so tenuous and vague that it’s a meaningless concept, depending on where you are in your personal cycle between hope and misery. And we all know that all we need now is more group chats.