WhatsApp is rolling out a new feature for its users. The Meta-owned social media platform now allows you to share your screen during video calls. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced this feature through posts on his Facebook and Instagram profiles. This addition puts Meta one step forward in its plan to compete with traditional video-conferencing platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Skype. This feature has been available to Android beta testers for a few weeks, but will now gradually be accessible to all users worldwide.
In the image shared by Zuckerberg, the interface of the new WhatsApp screen sharing feature looks similar to that of Google Meet or Zoom. The shared screen takes up most of the screen’s real estate, while the video call participants are seen in small rectangular tiles on the right side of the screen. You can share the screen by pressing the arrow icon which indicates the ‘share’ option.
Alongside this feature, the Meta-owned social network platform also introduced Landscape mode in video calls in addition to the Portrait mode. This makes screen sharing easier as it makes texts and graphics more legible on smartphones, which is the most popular device that WhatsApp is used on.
Meta said that they have started rolling out the features on iOS, Android and Windows devices, so if you don’t have immediate access to the feature, it will be available soon, since the company is rolling it out in a phased manner.
WhatsApp also recently introduced short video message sharing on the platform. The feature is accessible by tapping the mic icon, which is used to send voice messages. With a single tap, it changes to a video camera icon and by pressing that, users can send video messages of up to 60 seconds. It appears in a circular manner on the chat.