At the recently held Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, WhatsApp’s CEO Jan Koum promised that voice calling would be coming to its fantastically popular messaging app: “We’re adding voice to WhatsApp so people can stay in touch with friends and loved ones no matter where they are in the world,” said Koum.
Hindi translation
WPCentral was recently contacted by those contracted for Hindi support and translation for WhatsApp telling the website that they had received requests for the following phrases,“Hang Up”, “Incoming Calls” and “Outgoing Call”.
This has led many to speculate that voice calling is on its way. The thinking clearly being that one of the last steps towards introducing voice calling would be to have the app translated. There are certainly a number of other things that would need to be done before that step is what many are writing today.
The rollout
It’s expected, not surprisingly, that Android and iOS will see voice calling prior to Windows, Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) (BIT:NOK1V) (HEL:NOK1V), and BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) devices.
Perhaps even more telling were the screenshots released by iphonetalia last month that claim to show a beta version of the new WhatsApp iPhone app which purportedly shows a new display that is meant to be used for voice calling.
When Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) acquired WhatsApp, numerous news sources reported that things were on track for a Q2 launch of voice services, and now it’s presently the second quarter of the year.