WhatsApp is getting web video and voice calling capabilities. It's just too bad it will take a while to compete with Zoom and other similar rivals.

The feature has been hinted at for some time, and now WABetaInfo has posted a screenshot of the WhatsApp desktop client with a button to initiate a voice or video call.

Close-up of the WhatsApp client top bar.

Selecting one of these buttons will bring up a pop-out window from which you can control the call. This includes the expected features such as video calling, voice call on/off, and a disconnect button.

WhatsApp's biggest weakness is its reliance on the user's phone. While users can read messages and send files from their desktop, the lack of an option to make phone calls is a major gap in the feature set.

Rival messaging services such as Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom are all built around video calls, which can be made from the desktop or mobile versions of their apps. However, these services are primarily intended for business use. Some also require subscription payments to access all features, which is not relevant to the average user.

While WhatsApp is often used for casual messaging, users often turn to other services for social calls, as video calling is only available on smartphones and is limited to eight users at a time WhatsApp is a desktop could regain its position by introducing desktop and web client-based calling, but if it wants to stop the migration to Zoom, it needs to increase the number of users who can call at the same time.

Unfortunately, this option is still in beta, so most WhatsApp users will not be able to try it out; it appears that WhatsApp developers have enabled this feature for random users, not all users.

However, this is a smart and necessary feature, and it would be foolish for WhatsApp not to introduce this feature in the stable version of the app. However, given the time it took to introduce this feature to the beta version, it may take a while.