Will Cathcart, the head of WhatApp just posted a tweet explaining these new changes. They are all pretty minor quality-of-life changes, so don’t expect anything big. One of the more significant of these features is the ability to mute people during a group video call.
WhatsApp lets you mute and message people in a group call
Sometimes, people are just in loud environments while on a video call. Either that or there are just distracting sounds. This can be a bother while someone else is talking. Because of this, WhatsApp now gives people the ability to mute others in the video chat. When you tap on the person’s tile, you’ll see a dropdown menu with the mute option. When the person is muted, you’ll see their waveform flatten and become active when you unmute them. When you access that dropdown menu, you’ll also see the option to message that person. Now, WhatsApp lets you directly message people straight from that menu. This makes it a lot easier to directly message other people in the chat. Before, you’d need to go to the chat list and hunt down your conversation with that person. Rounding out these changes, WhatsApp will make it easier to know when someone enters the chat. Now, when a person enters the chat, you’ll get a notification stating that they entered the call. The notification will show the person’s name and show you their profile picture. It’s a way for you to keep track of who’s entering the chat if there are a lot of people present. These are all useful changes that make video chatting on WhatsApp better.