WhatsApp Starts Rolling Out New Voice Message Interface and Features

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.
whatsapp voice messages

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.

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Top Rated Comments

emdub Avatar
40 months ago
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.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
KOTN91 Avatar
40 months ago
Lol it still looks like it’s stuck in about 2013
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Ifti Avatar
40 months ago
WhatsApp is what iMessage should have been.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Morichan Avatar
40 months ago
I have been using this feature over a month now.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Deguello Avatar
40 months ago

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.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Dmitry Vlasenko Avatar
40 months ago

WhatsApp is what iMessage should have been.
Telegram is what iMessage should have been.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)