WhatsApp is introducing a bunch of new features to serve users who now send an average of 7 billion voice messages on the app every day.
"Voice messages have made it quick and easy for people to have more expressive conversations," WhatsApp said on its blog, adding, "Showing emotion or excitement through voice is more natural than text."
And WhatsApp continued, "In many cases, voice messages are the preferred form of communication on the platform."
There are 3 huge changes, which we will explain in detail here.
Play off the channel
You can play messages outside the channel where the voice chat is in. If you start listening to a voice message in one channel, you can leave that channel and talk to someone else on another channel, and the voice message will continue to play in the background.
This is especially useful if the voice note is very long, and you want to continue using WhatsApp without being obligated to stay in the same channel.
Pause and resume recording
Another long-awaited feature is the ability to pause and resume recordings, if you've ever recorded a long message, you've surely struggled with collecting and recording your thoughts in one go.
With the new update, you can pause and resume recording when you're ready.
A graphic showing the features announced by WhatsApp for the voice messaging service (WhatsApp)
Conversation preview
Conversation preview is also another long-awaited feature, and it's simple: you can listen to the audio messages before sending them.
This gives you a chance to see if you said something you didn't want to say, or to check if your audio quality is good enough.
And if you decide that the message is not valid, you can simply cancel it.
Also, there are 3 other changes that the user may enjoy.
The first is to watch the sound wave
This means that the waveform of the voice message appears on the recording, allowing you to "follow" the message more easily.
The second is the ability to remember the operation
So if you pause while listening to the voice message, you can come back to it later from the same place you left it.
The third is the ability to speed up the playback of voice messages
Including forwarded messages.
You can choose options to run at 1.5 times or twice above normal speed.