Kemble Circle’s voice room has a new call bar at its foot, after Discord’s: only icons, in one row that always fits the window. Your microphone and your camera each sit in one rounded shape with their options arrow and a divider between. Next come share screen, Activities, the soundboard, reactions, captions, the room’s chat, Record and More, then a red hang-up. Hovering over or tabbing to any button shows its name and its shortcut at once, and each icon moves a little on hover, with no movement when reduced motion is on. In a narrow room, or under a finger, the least-used tools move under More, so nothing is ever cut off. Kemble Work’s Link room keeps its labelled toolbar.
Recording is now one Record button that offers Record the room or Record sound only. While a room is recorded, a red border round the whole room pulses slowly (steady under reduced motion), and its top left says “Recording · sound only” or “Recording · the room” beside Live audio. The room’s header has Room chat where Threads was; the room status is shown as words and set from the header by those allowed; and alone in a call, the empty seat beside you offers Invite to voice and Choose an activity.
Windows opened from a popover or menu now stay open while you use them. In a voice room, choosing an activity in More activities starts it, and the switches in Manage activities change as you press them. Every popover, menu and sheet treats the windows, menus and pickers it opens as part of itself. Escape closes the top window first, then the popover under it, and focus goes back to where you were.
Your menu, redone. In Kemble Circle, the menu that opens from your name at the foot of the navigation starts with who you are (your picture, name, username and status), then your status, your profile, your accounts and Kemble Work, your settings, then Help (the help centre and keyboard shortcuts), with Sign out last and a divider between each group, each group named for screen readers. It no longer shows a scrollbar gap down its right side, and it scrolls only when the window is too short for it. Kemble Work’s menu is grouped the same way: your profile, switching, preferences, then Sign out.
Six new games in Circle voice rooms: Connect Four, Reversi, Dots and boxes, Battleship, Word Race and Texas Hold’em (play chips only, nothing to buy or win). Each has seats, spectators and a rematch, plays by keyboard and screen reader, and works on a phone held either way. Kemble’s servers check every move; in Battleship each fleet, and in Hold’em each hand, stays with its owner until it is sunk or shown. The launcher shows each game’s own picture. Chess and Checkers boards no longer spill their squares over each other under a finger on phones.
Camera settings, all in one place. The camera preview now holds every camera setting: your camera with a live preview, the resolution (up to 1080p) and frame rate (up to 60), Mirror my video (only you see it mirrored), a gentle low-light boost, and, where your camera supports them, its brightness, contrast, saturation, sharpness, exposure, white balance, zoom and focus, each with an Auto button. Reset camera settings puts everything back. While you are on camera, Adjust camera… in the camera’s options changes your live camera straight away. Your choices are kept on this device, and each camera keeps its own.
Live captions in Arabic and English. Whoever can turn captions on can choose the room’s language from the captions menu: Auto (Arabic or English), العربية or English. In Auto, a short phrase from someone already heard is transcribed in that person’s language, and speech is no longer written out as Spanish or Russian. A chosen language transcribes about twice as fast. Arabic lines are set right to left, one speaker’s Arabic and English lines stay separate, whisper’s Arabic noise (subtitle credits, “subscribe to the channel”, repeated words) no longer reaches the screen, and long speech is cut between words instead of in the middle of one.
Reactions in calls: react with any emoji, your community’s own included, from the full picker. Your favourites and recent emoji come first in the tray, and keys 1 to 9 send them. Fireworks joins confetti, hearts and applause, effects play Kemble’s own sounds (which you can switch off, and never hear while deafened), and a raised hand (H) stays up over your tile until you lower it. If you go too fast, Kemble says how long to wait.
The soundboard has 18 new sounds, 38 in all, grouped into Reactions, Jokes and fails, Hype, Games, Animals, and Bells and effects, with pills to show one group at a time. Your recent sounds come back under Recently played (forgotten when the last account on a device signs out), and each sound has its own options: a volume just for you and a preview. The rimshot now carries on phone speakers, and the whoosh is a full swish.
And the last of 26 October’s loose ends: a Circle community opened cold draws its safety notice in the same moment as the conversation; the live connection joins the same orderly queue as everything else and backs off when the server is busy; declining a call in an open window declines only that call; a caller giving up while Kemble is open in front of you leaves no extra notice; the staff console cancels a section’s loading when you leave it; on a stage, a listener’s player can no longer shorten or end a video; and signing out everywhere no longer cancels an email address change Kemble support is making for you.