WhatsApp developing feature for playing voice notes outside sender chats
What's the story
WhatsApp is developing a global voice message player that will make listening to voice notes much easier.
Currently, WhatsApp voice notes play on sender chat screens only. But thanks to this new feature, users may soon get to control voice notes from all screens within the app.
The in-development feature is expected in WhatsApp beta updates for Android and iOS soon, reported WABetaInfo.
Why global?
Voice message playback controls are also expected
The global voice message player—with pause, play, and dismiss controls—would likely be pinned to WhatsApp's top bar, allowing users to access it from any section in the app.
Going forward, this feature may be used for managing voice notes outside WhatsApp while using other apps.
In another move directed toward improving services, WhatsApp is working on a voice message transcription feature for iOS, too.
What's new
Apple will provide transcription for WhatsApp voice messages
Interestingly, the in-development iOS feature would allow voice message transcriptions to be done entirely on the device so that WhatsApp or its parent Facebook cannot access them.
Apple is likely to provide message transcription services and, in turn, improve its speech recognition technology, according to WABetaInfo.
To note, at present, third-party apps are necessary for transcribing voice notes on WhatsApp.
Recent updates
Features to control voice note playback speed, disappearing messages
In May, WhatsApp also released voice-note playback speed controls for iOS and Android users.
The most important update came in July when multi-device support launched for iOS and Android beta users.
Later, two disappearing message features were released to iOS beta users in October, including when your message disappears (24 hours, seven days, or 90 days) and the default message timer for all chats.
Looking ahead
Multi-device support is changing how we use WhatsApp
Multi-device support allows all devices sharing an account to communicate with WhatsApp servers independently. Users don't need to connect their phone to the internet to access their WhatsApp account from other devices.
Currently, an account can be linked to one phone and four other devices. But a recent report suggested this feature would be expanded to make WhatsApp accessible from a secondary phone, too.