WhatsApp delays plans to launch voice calling services until Q1 2015

Way back in April, WhatsApp announced they were planning to add voice calling services to their popular messaging app in the second quarter of 2014. That time period came and went with no such addition. Now WhatsApp's CEO says they are targeting a first quarter 2015 date to add voice features.

In a presentation at the Code/Mobile conference this week, WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum admitted that the development team has a number of technical hurdles to overcome before launching voice features. One of them is that the app itself doesn't have access to the microphones on some smartphones.

WhatsApp was recently acquired by Facebook, but Koum said this week that he doesn't think WhatsApp will compete with Facebook Messenger, which also has free voice call features via WiFi. He said that while Facebook is designed to work on both mobile products and desktops, WhatsApp is designed to work just on mobile devices, so any voice messages will go to a user's contact list.

Would you use WhatsApp to send voice messages to your friends and contacts when the company adds this feature?

Source: Fierce Wireless