WhatsApp’s latest update lets you speed up voice messages
The IM space is largely dominated by a select few options, with WhatsApp occupying center stage because of its massive popularity in regions like India and other parts of Asia. Because of its sheer momentum, every small change and feature addition to WhatsApp creates a large ripple that affects billions of users. WhatsApp’s voice message/voice note feature was one such addition, becoming popular with the audience who sometimes preferred to just drop an audio note instead of text. If you’ve been a recipient of many voice notes on WhatsApp, the IM app may make it easier for you to quickly listen through them with playback speed options.
According to a report by WABetaInfo, WhatsApp is finally rolling out the ability to listen to voice messages at different playback speeds to beta users on Android. The feature was already under development about a month ago, and the rollout to beta users is somewhat surprising as the pace of development and feature rollout on WhatsApp is very slow compared to the likes of Telegram and others. But better late than never, users on WhatsApp Beta 2.21.9.4 are now seeing a 1x/1.5x/2x button on voice messages.
Tapping the button changes the speed to the next option. This should come in very handy for situations when you’d need a recap and just want to skim through the voice note, or when a group spams voice notes and you just want to churn through to see if you missed anything important.
Playback speed options should have been available shortly after the launch of the voice notes feature, but at least it is coming now. If you are part of the beta group, note that the feature is seeing a server-side activation for a few users only and not the entire beta group. Here’s hoping that WhatsApp also works on fixing some of its easily exploitable vulnerabilities.
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