WhatsApp has been one of the most popular apps for instant messaging. Earlier this year, the Meta-owned company rolled out a host of features for iPhone, including the ability to pause and resume voice message recording. WhatsApp launched voice messaging back in 2013, but hadn’t introduced any significant updates to the feature for the last nine years. Now, that’s set to change soon as the popular messaging platform has announced six new features for its voice message option.

One of the most significant additions that resulted from its recent beta testing is the out-of-chat playback option, which is a boon when it comes to multitasking. Presently, playback stops if you leave the chat while a voice message is playing. The new update allows you to listen to a voice message even if you leave the chat, giving you the freedom to read or reply to other messages.

Another cool feature is the voice message preview option. After you record a voice message, you can listen to it before hitting send. By default, WhatsApp will send a voice message right after you release the record button. To preview, you will have to tap and hold the record button and drag it up so that it enters hands-free mode. You will then be presented with the option to either delete the message while recording or stop the recording by hitting the stop button and hear it again before you send it to the intended recipient.

The Meta-owned company announced the changes coming to WhatsApp:

1. Out of Chat Playback: Listen to a voice message outside of the chat so you can multitask or read and respond to other messages.
2. Pause/Resume Recording: When recording a voice message, you can now pause the recording and resume when ready, in case you’re interrupted or need to gather your thoughts.
3. Waveform Visualization: Shows a visual representation of the sound on the voice message to help follow the recording.
4. Draft Preview: Listen to your voice messages before sending them.
5. Remember Playback: If you pause when listening to a voice message, you can pick up where you left off when you return to the chat.
6. Fast Playback on Forwarded Messages: Play voice messages at 1.5x or 2x speeds to listen to messages faster on both regular and forwarded messages.

These features will be rolling out in the coming weeks, so you should make sure you’re on the latest version of WhatsApp to fully utilize them.

Yet again, WhatsApp is merely catching up to rival platforms such as Telegram which are now in a league of their own. In fact, this update to WhatsApp’s voice messaging feature was long-overdue because other Meta-owned platforms like Instagram (which don’t primarily focus on instant messaging) have more functionality baked into voice messaging tools.

What do you think of the latest WhatsApp voice message update? Let us know in the comments.