After a slight delay, WhatsApp finally looks ready to roll out the much-sought-after voice note transcription feature to everyone. The feature was initially only available to beta users, but from today onwards, everyone can get in on the transcription action.
Stuff’s daily driver (running WhatsApp for Android 2.24.23.78) is yet to receive the update, though WhatsApp mentions that users globally should see the update as soon as “the coming weeks.” It’s worth noting, however, that the feature will only offer a select number of languages, with support planned in the coming months.
Making your voice heard (but not really)
We all have that one friend. That friend who sent one voice note, didn’t hear any complaints, and suddenly became too comfortable with the medium. Now, you’re forced to suffer through their numerous “ummms” and “uhhhs” before finally getting to the point. This change aims to squash this, though WhatsApp put it in far nicer terms.
“…Sometimes, you’re on the move, in a loud place, or you receive a long voice message that you just can’t stop and listen. For those moments we’re excited to introduce voice message transcripts. Voice messages can be transcribed into text to help you keep up with conversations no matter what you’re doing,” it said in a blog post.
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Voice transcripts are not enabled automatically. Head over to Settings > Chats > Voice message transcripts to turn the feature on or off, or to adjust your preferred transcription language. Transcribing a voice note is as simple as long-pressing a message and tapping on ‘transcribe’. That’s the case for both Android and iOS.
The transcription happens on-device, meaning nobody, not even WhatsApp can read or hear those messages. At the time of writing, only four languages support the feature on Android: English, Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian. What the next language added will be, only WhatsApp knows. iOS supports a far larger range of languages thanks to the help of Siri – you can check the list of available languages here.
