WhatsApp might soon let you pause and resume voice recordings before sending

Whatsapp Message Hero (Image credit: Luke Filipowicz / iMore)

What you need to know

WhatsApp is working on a feature that will allow voice recordings to be paused.
Users currently have to create two distinct messages.

Fans of sending voice messages via WhatsApp might soon be able to pause their recordings and then restart them later.

As spotted by WhatsApp watchers WABetaInfo, the current beta of the iPhone app includes a new change that allows people to add extra content to an existing voice recording before it is submitted. In its current state, WhatsApp requires that messages be recorded and then sent as-is, with additional content then needing to be a whole new message.

That appears to be set to change.

The team is working on a lot of new features and finally, WhatsApp is getting several improvements, in particular for voice messages. The latest news reports that WhatsApp is working on the possibility to pause voice messages while recording them, for a future update. This feature is very useful because it won't force you to stop and record a new one.

Many would already consider WhatsApp to be one of the best iPhone apps at what it does and re-working the existing voice recording system like this certainly won't harm it in that regard.

While the feature is now in the latest iPhone app beta there is no telling when it will be made available to everyone. It's also possible that the feature could be nixed entirely, although that seems unlikely given the fact it's working right now. Still, WhatsApp puts these changes into betas for a reason and we'll just have to wait and see if and when the change makes its way into the App Store release in the future.

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.