As video streaming services saw a decline in their streaming qualities, WhatsApp too has taken measures to lower the traffic on servers. One such recent move includes a limit for videos that are posted as WhatsApp statuses.
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WhatsApp has recently reduced the Status video limit from 30 seconds to 15 seconds. This is mostly aimed at cutting strain on Internet networks during the lockdown in the country announced by the Prime Minister in view of the global COVID-19 pandemic. The news came out through a tweet by WABetaInfo, which is a WhatsApp features and updates tracker. Yes, it does not come as an official announcement from WhatsApp or Facebook directly, but it is something that users have seen it practically on their iPhones. This may be a temporary measure and can be restored to the earlier 30 seconds once things return to normalcy later.
For those unaware of ‘WhatsApp status’ feature, it allows you to share media such as text, photo, video and GIF as updates to people who are in your contact list and automatically disappears after 24 hours.
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Still, if users want to post longer videos, they will now have to crop it and reduce it to 15 seconds or less. This change is rolling rapidly to all users and even Android, whether you are using a WhatsApp Beta version or not. It is expected to be rolled back once the COVID-19 pandemic blows over.
In February 2020, WhatsApp announced 2 billion users worldwide. So, it’s imaginable how much data this text-messaging application uses in a day. Earlier we have also seen Netflix, Amazon Video, YouTube and Facebook lowering down the quality of video streams to save the internet lines after considering the increase in data usage due to millions of people sitting and working at home due to the Coronavirus lockdown.
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Narender Kumar
Always on the quest to learn and share the knowledge. Big fan of books (but not the self help ones) specially fiction. A grammar Nazi who loves to eat, cook, travel and watching thunderstorms.