WhatsApp: Practical innovation in voice messages - but there could be a small pitfall
Created: 07/03/2022, 16:02
By: Jennifer Battaglia
WhatsApp users will be happy: finally there is a long-awaited innovation in voice messages.
© Lino Mirgeler (dpa)
Voice messages are popular, but sometimes a little awkward to listen to.
The Messenger therefore now has a new function.
But even with that - as always - getting used to is necessary.
Munich - With more than two billion users, WhatsApp is the largest and most popular news service around the globe.
A good quarter of the world's population can therefore be reached via the chat function on the smartphone.
In Germany it should be up to 66 million.
The competitor providers Telegram, Signal or Threema are used by far fewer people.
Messenger WhatsApp: New updates and features
WhatsApp always provides its users with new updates and features.
However, not all innovations have always met with approval in the past.
The news portal, which belongs to the Meta company (known as Facebook until 2021), has repeatedly received strong criticism for its data protection settings.
Many users then even migrated to other messengers.
For a good two weeks now there has been an innovation that many users should like.
Because since then, received or self-created voice messages can also be easily listened to outside of the respective chat.
The innovation was announced last fall.
A huge relief for anyone who, in addition to listening to minute-long recordings of friends, family and colleagues, would also like to do something else, such as reply to more chat messages or surf the web.
WhatsApp: voice messages can now be played outside of the chat
Previously, the voice message broke off as soon as you left the respective chat history.
So you had to stay in the chat to be able to hear the recording to the end.
For messages lasting several minutes, this was a limitation for many users. But that's over now.
While listening, users can now reply to other chat messages or even exit the app and edit pictures or surf the web.
The voice message only stops once and can then be continued via a blue bar at the top of the mobile phone display.
WhatsApp: New function could cause confusion
But watch out!
The new function could possibly cause confusion.
Anyone who is listening to a voice message but is also in the middle of another chat could be fooled by squinting into the upper corner.
After all, WhatsApp has always shown the name of the respective chat partner at the top for years.
According to the
Bit Projects
website , the additional name could cause confusion for inattentive users.
Nevertheless, it is not to be expected that the practical new function will be reversed.
That was the case with another feature in early February.
In order not to further annoy users, the function was deleted from both the mobile app and the desktop version.
(jb)
