The majority of times when somebody calls me over WhatsApp, I can't properly hear them and need to hang up and switch to a regular call, which works properly

I do the opposite

You or them have some issue with device, whatsapp calls work perfectly fine for past 15 years. If needed you can quickly switch to video, good luck with normal calls.

Back home 5g signal is weak, so my phone does even regular calls over wifi/network, then you are 1:1 with whatsapp or similar apps. No more missed or interrupted calls due to blip in coverage.

Here in Europe I know exactly 0 people who don't have it, even online contact forms of various webs and companies have direct whatsapp contact.

> Here in Europe

Europe is not homogeneous... I rarely see WhatsApp integration in Switzerland.

But my phone providers support "Call over WiFi", and calls that go through that are crystal clear. But it's curious stuff, if the calls are being routed through my home WiFi (or when I'm on the road: over my data SIM, which is from a different provider), what the hell am I paying them X cents/minute for?

> what the hell am I paying them X cents/minute for?

Because they can get away with it. They don't care, they're the phone company and have a monopoly.

With this change, you can finally get similar UX with a third-party app independent of your phone company.

East Asia isn't on Whatsapp. In most of South-East Asia it's also not the #1. That makes for ~2 billion people.

No, overseas most do and it's endless frustrating right now:

1. Long press on the phone number, but don't tap it otherwise it calls

2. Choose Copy phone number

3. Create a contact

4. Refresh WhatsApp by quitting and reopening

5. Find the contact on WhatsApp and call

If you're calling multiple companies for bookings or quotes, repeat this over and over.

Apple is to blame for many things, but the fact that if whatsapp has access to your contact list you can't start a conversation with any phone number in an easy way is entirely up to them.

This said, it's good to see that apple is slowly adding things so basic that it's baffling they are not there since years.

Do not know things on Iphone side but in android I justs end the device to myself and click the number,then it gives option to chat via whatsapp.

FYI you can go to wa.me/<phone-number> on your browser to start a WhatsApp conversation without having to create a new contact.

Even more, there are convenient Shortcuts for messaging a number on WhatsApp quickly, implemented through the same wa.me OpenURL action.

not the case in europe at all, hence my comment. you guys should travel more.

Are you sure about that?

Could imagine that countries like India the majority of buisneses also have an whatsapp account.

Never tried it, but it seems that calling a regular non-account via whatsapp will still work. But routed through watsapp servers. If someone can confirm or deny that, would be cool.

That's hugely incorrect, most of Asian, Europe have whatsapp numbers listed, not phone numbers.

That doesn’t really align with my experience in Europe or Japan - do you have a particular country in mind?

that's 100% wrong, i live in europe in a whatsapp country and no listed phone number EVER has an associated whatsapp account

so don't downvote me if you're in india and certain countries in sa asia where that is the case but that's not the whole world outside the us