WhatsApp has announced that it is rolling out new features for voice messages to improve user experience. The company first launched the messaging feature back in 2013 and now over 7 billion voice messages are sent every day, on average.
The latest features are already available to some but will be rolled out for all users in the coming weeks.
A major improvement on the platform is the Out of Chat Playback feature, which allows users to listen to voice messages outside of a chat, while they multitask or read/respond to other messages.
Users can also pause while recording a voice message and resume it when ready, in case the recording is interrupted. You can also listen to a voice message before sending it.
WhatsApp also updated the UI for the voice-messaging feature with a waveform visualization to help follow a recording more efficiently. The waveform also provides an easy option to playback the recording as needed.
For people who do not enjoy listening to long voice messages, WhatsApp has introduced a fast playback feature that allows users to play voice messages at 1.5x or 2x speeds for both regular and forwarded messages.
