Back in May this year, WhatsApp rolled out the ability to change the playback speeds of voice messages. You could bump the playback speed to 1.5x or 2x, a handy option when going through large voice notes. Now, WhatsApp is working on bringing the same feature to audio messages.

What are audio messages, you ask? When you forward a voice note to another chat, it becomes an audio message. Right now, it is not possible to speed up the playback of an audio message as the relevant button does not show up. However, this could soon change as WhatsApp is working on bringing the playback speed functionality to audio messages. WABetaInfo discovered the feature in the latest beta release of WhatsApp for iPhone. It's only a matter of time before WhatsApp starts testing this functionality in a future beta release of WhatsApp for Android.

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Despite this being a minor addition to an existing tool, WhatsApp tends to take its sweet time beta testing new features, so it could be a while before playback speed controls make their way to audio messages on your Android phone. It would also be nice to see WhatsApp add an option to slow down the playback speed as it could be helpful for people with hearing difficulties.

WhatsApp is working on several other new improvements for its platform, including the ability to hide your 'Last seen' status from specific contacts, a redesigned contact info page, Communities within groups, and even P2P payment support in the US.