WhatsApp to soon have pop up video calls, will let you can continue texting in the background.

WhatsApp to soon have pop up video calls, will let you can continue texting in the background.

WhatsApp is on a roll lately, barely a week goes by without hearing of a new feature coming up. Just the other day we told you that Youtube links will now be playing inside the WhatsApp interface and that they will have  floating windows that let you continue chatting as the video gets streamed.

It seems the company has applied the same idea to video chats. Starting with an upcoming update, you will be able to have a video call with your buddy while still being able to quickly reply to your texts. The video will be streamed on a floating window that will let you access the rest of the app in the background. Previously, you had to wait until a video call is over before you could reply to an incoming message. Some texts simply require a short yes/no kind of reply; it seems that those are the kind that will benefit most from this feature.

The floating window is made possible by the picture in picture feature that came with android 7.0 Nougat. It is not clear if the pop up window will be movable nor if you will be able to use other apps beside WhatsApp. I would imagine taking notes about the conversation or setting up a date on your calendar app would come in handy.

Evidence for this feature was found in WhatsApp Beta app (used for testing purposes). Strangely, only devices running Android O Developer Preview can access the pop up video calls for now. We hope it will trickle down to all android versions once the feature it rolls out to the public.