WhatsApp appears to be preparing two new features for arrival on the platform, voice message transcription and end-to-end encryption of cloud backups.
The features aren't yet live, but we do know that the more secure cloud backups will be coming to both iOS and Android, while voice message transcription will only be heading to iOS initially.
The latter was first spotted by WABetaInfo, as many of these upcoming WhatsApp features often are, in a developer build of the iOS app, with the feature set to be optional for those who grant speech recognition access.Â
The report from the outlet, interestingly, points out that the voice data won't be shared with Facebook - WhatsApp's owner - and will instead all be handled by Apple. If a message is transcribed, however, it's still saved locally in WhatsApp's database, just in case you need to access it at a later date.
It's expected that the feature will also aid Apple in improving its speech recognition technology, as well, but, as of yet, it's not clear when - or even if - voice transcription will come to Android.
With regard to end-to-end encryption for cloud backups, the situation is a little more developed, with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirming last week that WhatsApp will be the "first global messaging service at this scale to offer end-to-end encrypted messaging and backups" to users.
Like voice message transcription, this is pretty much exactly what it says on the tin, and should allow users on either operating system the ability to encrypt the backups stored in Google Drive or iCloud.
No comments:
Post a Comment