In exciting news for voice note-loving folks (they are a select bunch), WhatsApp is currently testing out voice statuses. Yep, Meta, the company that owns WhatsApp, is working on 10 new tools with voice statuses being one of them.
Most of the new tools are currently being tested through the beta version of the Android app, reports WhatsApp beta testing publication WABetaInfo. The voice status update lets users record and share voice notes as a status instead of plain text.
“You will have a maximum recording time of 30 seconds, and if you don’t like what you hear, you can toss out the status before recording another update,” writes TechRadar.
“Notes are confirmed to be end-to-end encrypted, ‘ensuring that only the people you choose with your privacy settings can listen to them’. They also automatically disappear after 24 hours or you can delete them yourself at any time.”
? WhatsApp beta for Android 2.23.2.8: what’s new?
WhatsApp is releasing the ability to share voice notes via status updates to some lucky beta testers!https://t.co/ZHmQu368oz pic.twitter.com/ETsDLogxbC
— WABetaInfo (@WABetaInfo) January 18, 2023
The feature is only available to a few beta app testers on Androids. And their WhatsApp friends will need to have access to it to hear their voice statuses.
Related: WhatsApp Will Now Let You Delete That Cringe Text, But Screenshots Are Forever, Baby
Related: Note to Self: WhatsApp’s New Feature Will Let You Message Yourself
Also among the new features WhatsApp is testing is one exclusive to iOS. It tabs to the in-app camera so you can switch between taking photos or shooting videos on the fly instead of pressing and holding the on-screen button.
“It’s unknown if the video mode will continue recording after switching to photo mode or if it will stop,” writes TechRadar. “Hopefully, it’s the former, because it would be disappointing if the recording stops after switching.”
This comes after WhatsApp launched another new feature late last year: the ability to message yourself. The idea is that you can easily keep track of reminders, shopping lists and any other pieces of info you think of when you don’t have a pen and paper handy, but don’t want to forget.
Called ‘Message Yourself’, the feature works exactly how it sounds — it lets you access yourself in your WhatsApp contact lists, and then start a conversation. Like any other WhatsApp convo, you can send simple text, hyperlinks, voice notes and even forwarded messages from other chats. Users can also pin their self-chat messages to the top of the conversation list if they don’t want to waste any time searching for them.
In August, WhatsApp also upped the time you could unsend messages. You used to be able to unsend messages on WhatsApp within an hour, but now you’ll have a little more time to question your words — with the limit upped to two days.
To use the feature, open up the WhatsApp chat where you want to delete the message, tap and hold the content you’d like gone and then either hit ‘Delete for everyone’ or ‘Delete for me’. If you’ve passed the time limit (meaning it’s been longer than two days) you’ll only see the option to ‘Delete for me’.
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