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WhatsApp announced on Thursday that it has introduced new mobile features that make it easier for users to participate in chats. When a user is engaged in an active conversation in individual and group chats, a tip indicator will now appear along with the visual cues that appear in the chat. Notably, this feature complements the Voice Message Transcript feature introduced last month, which allows users to see text transcripts of voice messages they receive from others. According to a press release from the Meta Platform company, the Typing Indicator feature provides a visual cue of “…” that appears at the bottom of the chat screen along with the user’s profile picture as they type. The latter feature is said to be particularly useful in group chats where several users type at the same time. This feature adds the ability to see when someone is typing in an active conversation, in addition to the existing typing indicator that appears in the top banner. The feature was first in development in October and was only available to a limited number of beta testers.

According to the social media platform, the type indicator will be released for both platforms, WhatsApp for iOS and Android. A Gadgets 360 representative can confirm the availability of devices with the above operating systems. In addition to typing markers, WhatsApp also introduced voice message transcription last month. This makes sending voice messages easier. As the name suggests, it offers users text transcription of voice messages they receive from other users. However, only the recipient can see the voicemail transcript, not the sender. The company emphasizes that transcripts of voice messages are generated on the device and no one else can listen to or read the content of the transcripts. In addition, voice messages are still protected by end-to-end encryption of the instant messaging platform. The feature currently supports English, Portuguese, Spanish and Russian on the Android platform, while WhatsApp for iOS supports Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Norwegian, with additional support for Thai, Turkish and Swedish.