WhatsApp to add voice calling feature: reports

Leaked screenshots claimed to have been snapped from an unreleased version of WhatsApp had hit the internet, giving early glimpse at what the voice calling feature would look like www.mobiletor.com reported.

The shots were allegedly found in a new Android build of WhatsApp. Two main versions of the app are available at a time, with one of them being available on the Play store and the other through the service's official site.

According to GSM Arena, the images had been pulled by AndroidWorld.nl by dissecting the latter build. What had been clear by them was that the chat functionality of WhatsApp would stay separate from the voice calling feature as there would be different screens for dialing, call logs as also contacts. There were also indications that users would be able to record calls for hearing them later.

While it had been made clear in the past that voice calling would be rolled out for WhatsApp sometime in Q1 of 2015, they had not revealed whether it would be accessible for free or not. At the time the company was acquired by Facebook, it revealed that it intended to keep the popular app ad-free for the time being, but there was no telling when that decision could change.

Meanwhile, Ubergizmo reported that though there might be any number of cross-platform messaging services available right now WhatsApp, however, was a clear market leader and was one of the first services of its kind to work cross-platform capturing hundreds of millions of users around the world. Others had tried competing with it by offering features like voice and video calling, an area where WhatsApp had lagged.

Android World claims to have extracted the layout for WhatsApp voice calling feature complete with text and the relevant image files, which were then used to put together screenshots showing what the feature would look when they went live.

According to Ubergizmo, while it was known that the voice calling feature would be added to the cross-platform messaging application it could not be independently confirmed as yet if this was what the feature would really look like.

There had been no communication from WhatsApp on the screenshots, and it had not even provided a timeframe in which one could expect voice calling to go live on the app.