After a few months of testing in beta versions, WhatsApp has finally definitively introduced the ability to play voice messages at twice the speed at which they were recorded. To activate the new function, download the latest version of WhatsApp from the App Store for iPhone or from the Google Play Store for Android, open a chat in which there is a voice message and play. During the playback of the voice, instead of the photo of the contact who sent the message, the symbol “1x” (it reads “one for”) will appear: touch it to speed up the message by 50% and then touch it again to play it twice as fast. speed. A third tap on the icon finally restores playback at original speed. The last selected setting is always active for all vowels. By selecting “2X” playback, all new audio messages will also be initially played at twice the speed.
The app allows you to speed up both received and sent messages, in case you want to listen to them again, wasting half the time you took to record them. Unfortunately, it does not work with forwarded messages, nor with other types of audio such as mp3 files, or recordings shared in chat from other apps. The function is similar to that available on Telegram for some years already. The competing app of WhatsApp allows you to speed up (almost) any type of audio file, including forwarded messages, and offers a system player with which you can control audio playback even when you leave the chat with the contact who sent the vocal. The function is only available for messages recorded with WhatsApp, but not for those forwarded.
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It will be interesting to see if this new WhatsApp feature will change user habits, and how. Those who hate receiving voice messages can now waste half the time listening to them, that’s true. At the same time, the serial recorders, the 10-minute Tommaso Paradiso-style voice recorders, will have one more excuse to send long messages even to those who can’t stand them.
Meanwhile, with the latest update, WhatsApp has also introduced a novelty for groups, another cross and delight of the most popular messaging app in the world. Starting with the latest version of the software, an “@” will appear in the chat list next to the groups in which we have been mentioned or someone has replied to our message. Useful for those high-intensity groups that we are forced to participate in (the infamous class chats, for one thing), which can thus be ignored more easily unless someone calls us in first person.
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