In order to compose and send a voice message on WhatsApp, you need to open a new chat or current conversation, press and hold the microphone button in the bottom right corner and start talking. When done, release the button and off your message goes.
Push-to-talk voice messages made it to WhatsApp back in 2013, but since then, not so much has been done to improve the feature, however, this is about to change. According to a discovery made by WhatsApp insider WABetaInfo, the Facebook-owned app is planning to overhaul this feature and make it a lot easier to record and send an audio message.
Once you start recording an audio message, a sliding interface will show up for the microphone button which when swiped up, it will lock the app into recording mode. This should allow you to speak out your message without holding the microphone button like before.
Holding down the mic button in order to record an audio message on WhatsApp isn’t a bad idea at all. However, the new way of doing things should free your hand – and the app – to do other things. For instance, you can continue browsing the open chat to identify any other info that needs to be included in the voice message being recorded.
If you want to check out how the feature works, WABetaInfo made a short video, which you can watch right below:
Apparently, there are still some restrictions on how the feature works, but whether these will change in the final version is still unknown. For starters, you can’t view other media files, images or videos, when locked in recording mode. It’s also not possible to make use of the text area when in locked mode. Last but not least, you are limited to the current chat when in locked mode, which means you can’t access other WhatsApp chats, even if you wanted to.
As it is, only a handful of those using WhatsApp beta can take advantage of this feature. I’m part of the beta program on the Play Store, but I don’t have the feature just yet, which could also mean it’s limited to location. Nonetheless, it shouldn’t be long before the stable version gets the update.
Would you like to see this change effected to WhatsApp sooner or later? Let us know in your comments below.
