The COVID-19 pandemic is over, but its legacy remains.
Among the many things that it inherited the world, is that people now realize the importance of messaging apps to aid communications. In the modern world of tech, there is no replacement for the convenience of having messaging apps installed and running on mobile devices for both personal and work purposes.
Zoom had its heyday, which followed by the likes of Google Meet.
WhatsApp, the popular messaging app, was originally meant to ease communication for personal purposes. But since its acquisition by Meta, the platform has grown to all sides, encompassing more and more features.
And this time, WhatsApp is again expanding, by introducing a way to share screen, just like Zoom and others, which popularized the feature during the pandemic.
The feature is first introduced by Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, in a post:
WhatsApp added video calling to its platform many years ago. Since then, the service has improved the feature by letting users add more people to a group video call.
Taking cues from rivals, WhatsApp's sharing feature allows users to share their phone or desktop's screen when on a video call.
The feature should come in handy for those people who use WhatsApp to hold online classes, in which they can use the screen sharing feature to show notes or slides. The feature should also be helpful when users provide tech support to their friends or family members over a video call for an issue on their phone, for example.
The good thing about the feature is that, WhatsApp is also landscape mode video calls. This layout is better suited for screen sharing, especially when viewing slides or presentations.
What's more, users can share their entire screen or just a specific app when initiating a screen-sharing session.
But it's worth noting that when using screen sharing, the entirety of the users' screen is visible, including its content. Users should be aware of sensitive and private information that could inadvertently shown.
Like regular chats, screen sharing in WhatsApp is protected by end-to-end encryption. The feature works with video calls, but not audio calls.
What's also worth noting, screen sharing will not share audio content from apps over the call.
Screen sharing in WhatsApp was first spotted in development in late May 2023, meaning that Meta has been relatively quick in making the feature public.
WhatsApp says screen sharing is rolling out on Android, iPhone, and Windows in a phased manner.
To use the feature, users can simply start a video call with one or more people, to then click or tap on the Share icon, to choose whether to share a specific application or your entire screen.
After selecting one of the options, the screen will then be shared with all participants on the call.
When this feature is active, participants' video icons will still be visible on the right side of the screen.
Just before this, WhatsApp introduced the instant video messaging feature, which allows users to respond to chats with videos up to 60 seconds long.