WhatsApp Starts Rolling Out New Voice Message Interface and Features

[MacRumors]

Voice messages or "voice notes" are often the preferred form of communication on WhatsApp, with on average around 7 billion sent over the platform every day, and today WhatsApp has announced several new features to improve the experience of using them.

The most notable change that recently came out of beta testing is out-of-chat playback, which lets you listen to a voice message outside of the chat so you can multitask or read and respond to other messages.

If you play a voice note and then switch to the WhatsApp home screen or to a different chat thread, a new voice message playback interface appears at the top of the app with buttons to pause, resume, or dismiss the voice note, along with a waveform visualization and progress bar.

It's now possible to pause a received voice message and pick up where you left off when you return to the chat, and you can also play voice messages at 1.5x or 2x speeds to listen to messages faster on both regular and forwarded messages.

Lastly, when recording a voice message, you can now pause the recording and resume it when ready, while draft previews let you listen to your voice messages before sending them.

WhatsApp says the new voice message features are rolling out to all users of the encrypted chat service over the coming weeks.

Article Link: WhatsApp Starts Rolling Out New Voice Message Interface and Features

 

[hydrochloride]

The most notable change that recently came out of beta testing is out-of-chat playback, which lets you listen to a voice message outside of the chat so you can multitask or read and respond to other messages.

Like texting while sitting in a bar with someone. ?

 

[Morichan]

I have been using this feature over a month now.

 

[cicalinarrot]

Forced my friends to move all my relevant chats to Telegram years ago, when they already had most of these "new" features. And where I could already tell people my phone battery died from a PC.

 

[Ifti]

WhatsApp is what iMessage should have been.

 

[emdub]

As someone who travels regularly from Europe to Brasil I cannot begin to describe how ingrained whatsapp is in (my part of) Brasil. EVERYTHING goes through it. They call it "Zappy". If I want a meeting with the bank manager, I schedule it with a Zappy. If I want beer delivery at home, Zappy. If I want to send my accountant or Lawyers some files, Zappy. Taxi? Zappy. Covid test? Zappy. Even TV commercials sometimes reference a "Zappy" contact for orders, support and information. This voice note feature is the most used... and I absolutely hate it.

 

[wanha]

Soooo... when the EU messaging interoperability bill goes live, will Apple and others have to build this functionality into their apps or will WhatsApp need to strip it from the app or label it non-interoperable?

And yes - thank you for asking - I do find the EU interoperability bill well-intentioned but horribly misinformed.

 

[Deguello]

As someone who travels regularly from Europe to Brasil I cannot begin to describe how ingrained whatsapp is in (my part of) Brasil. EVERYTHING goes through it. They call it "Zappy". If I want a meeting with the bank manager, I schedule it with a Zappy. If I want beer delivery at home, Zappy. If I want to send my accountant or Lawyers some files, Zappy. Taxi? Zappy. Covid test? Zappy. Even TV commercials sometimes reference a "Zappy" contact for orders, support and information. This voice note feature is the most used... and I absolutely hate it.

My written Spanish is so much better than my spoken Spanish with my egregious accent that I wish I could like this twice.

Man, I’m trying, but please let me just type.

 

[hydrochloride]

Soooo... when the EU messaging interoperability bill goes live, will Apple and others have to build this functionality into their apps or will WhatsApp need to strip it from the app or label it non-interoperable?

And yes - thank you for asking - I do find the EU interoperability bill well-intentioned but horribly misinformed.

Not being able to listening to voice messages in 1.5x speed would make other apps not interoperable?

 

[willyx]

Hopefully some day they will implement a feature that converts audio messages into text.

 

[contacos]

Soooo... when the EU messaging interoperability bill goes live, will Apple and others have to build this functionality into their apps or will WhatsApp need to strip it from the app or label it non-interoperable?

And yes - thank you for asking - I do find the EU interoperability bill well-intentioned but horribly misinformed.

I think they are „only“ required to make basic text functionality possible between messengers. Not the whole feature set, that would be impossible

 

[5232152]

WhatsApp is what iMessage should have been.

Owned by Meta?

I do wish Apple got their crap together and followed international protocols for better transparency and cross OS chat

 

[JosephAW]

Telegram has been doing this for years. I’m assuming you can start recording and swipe up to continue recording without touching your screen like you can in telegram, hopefully you can scrub across the waveform like you can in telegram and forward audio like telegram and delete it from everybody you sent it to like telegram and set an expiration time like telegram.
My friend who has shaky hands uses this feature exclusively, we tried using other apps including iMessage but kept returning to telegram because their implementation is much more refined and user-friendly.

 

[KOTN91]

Lol it still looks like it’s stuck in about 2013

 

[Futurix]

Soooo... when the EU messaging interoperability bill goes live, will Apple and others have to build this functionality into their apps or will WhatsApp need to strip it from the app or label it non-interoperable?

And yes - thank you for asking - I do find the EU interoperability bill well-intentioned but horribly misinformed.

That’s not how interoperability works - it doesn’t require feature parity. If both apps have same / similar feature - only then they should interoperate.

 

[scotty321]

This is awesome!!! ?

I love WhatsApp, and it has always put Apple’s inferior Messages app to shame. Trying to do ANYTHING with voice messages in Apple’s app is a complete & total disaster.

Nice to see that WhatsApp keeps improving their app, even after they were ALREADY the best!!

They act the complete opposite of how Apple acts, who just lets their technologies wither & stagnate forever (Messages, Siri, FaceTime, Final Cut, Photos, Apple Mail, Maps, Calendars, Contacts, Safari, HomeKit, CarPlay, etc.)

 

[TJ82]

WhatsApp is lightyears ahead of anything else.

 

[soyazul]

ohhh another Telegram characteristic taken adopted by WhatsApp.... the relationship between WhatsApp and telegram reminds me Microsoft taking all possible thing from Apple all the time

 

[nvmls]

WhatsApp is what iMessage should have been.

Sadly.

Ironic how apple fans trash it, yet it's light years ahead from iMessage, which is an abomination (like most of Apple apps lately).

 

[martin2345uk]

WhatsApp is fine, it's my default messaging app for literally everyone except my dad, but I do wish they would jazz it up a bit! When you compare it to the customisation you can get in Facebook Messenger, like themes for individual chats, it looks so staid and dull...

I know this level of gaudiness isn't to everyone's taste but it's just nice to have customisation options!

 

[Dmitry Vlasenko]

WhatsApp is what iMessage should have been.

Telegram is what iMessage should have been.

 

[Dmitry Vlasenko]

WhatsApp is lightyears ahead of anything else.

Telegram is lightyears ahead of anything else.

 

[DanteHicks79]

You can't even do basic message reacts with WhatsApp - at least iMessage finally has TapBack, but even that is sorely limited.

Can't select multiple images to send to contacts in WhatsApp. One at a time is a slog.

 

[martin2345uk]

Can't select multiple images to send to contacts in WhatsApp. One at a time is a slog.

You can do this, at least on the iOS version.

 

[DanteHicks79]

You can do this, at least on the iOS version.

Right, forgot you have to tap one photo first, and then you can select multiple more.