Monday, March 9, 2015

WhatsApp voice calls now available in updated app

If you’ve been waiting forever for the WhatsApp voice calling feature to arrive, you may not have to wait much longer. Users are now reporting another wave of WhatsApp calls being activated. Head below to see how to get WhatsApp phone calls enabled on your Android smartphone.


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WhatsApp calling has finally landed. And we’ve got it working.

WhatsApp voice calling: out now


Head to WhatsApp’s official website to grab the latest version of the WhatsApp APK (currently v2.11.556) or you can grab it directly from APK Mirror and install it. You may need to enable ”Unknown Sources” in your device’s security settings first though.


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WhatsApp calling in action, with new contact options (right).

Once you’ve got the app installed, all you need to do is find yourself someone with the feature already enabled, and have them call you to activate it on your device too. This has already worked for some of us at AndroidPIT, but we’ve found the call quality to be a little patchy. You’ll then see a three-tab layout with a calling option next to your contacts


AndroidPIT WhatsApp voice call call log notification shade
WhatsApp calls have a detailed call log and you can handle calls in the notifications shade.

If you’re having any trouble getting the service to work, you can also do it manually with a little elbow grease. Just check our guide on how to manually enable WhatsApp voice calling. If you want to know how to silence incoming WhatsApp calls now that you’ve got yet another calling channel to worry about, here’s a quick guide for that too.


Lollipop’s Priority Mode allows you to silence notifications


WhatsApp now respects Android 5.0 Lollipop’s Priority Mode. This means you can now silence WhatsApp notifications and incoming phone calls – which would previously come through even with Priority Mode enabled.


AndroidPIT WhatsApp Nexus 5
At last! WhatsApp now works with Android 5.0 Lollipop Priority Mode.

The issue came about because WhatsApp plays alert tones differently to most apps. Whereas most apps play a notification tone – which Priority Mode can silence – WhatsApp played its notification via Android’s media volume, which meant that even with Priority Mode enabled every WhatsApp message would still play a jingle. Considering that basically everyone with a smartphone uses WhatsApp, this essentially made Priority Mode useless.


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WhatsApp now shows when messages have been read!

A previous work around was to silence media volume as well, but as you can probably tell, that would silence all other notifications tones as well. Funny how one app alone can essentially undermine an entire Android feature. In any case, WhatsApp will now be silenced even in Priority Mode, unless you have it white-listed. Enjoy the peace and quiet now that you can actually use Priority Mode.



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WhatsApp voice calls now available in updated app

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