Mxit started the roll out of the seventh version of its popular messaging application today. The application is already available from today for feature phones and will be available for iPhone and iPad platforms from the 15th of November. The roll out will continue with Android and BlackBerry devices in the coming weeks and a Windows Phone client in early in 2014.

Mxit’s smartphone apps have been redesigned to include some functionality that its international competitors like Whatsapp and WeChat have including the ability to send voice notes between users. The iOS 7 application has been built from scratch to match the new version of Apple’s operating system and have added some new features including Doodlechat, which lets users draw pictures on the screen or on photos before sharing them and Backdrop, which allows users to drop photos into the background of any chat window.

While Nokia’s lower cost Asha series of phones which blur the lines between smartphone and feature phone will now have the ability to receive messages even when they are offline. Feature phone now get the ability to have group chats and tabbed chats while the applications themselves have been coded to use less system resources to enable smoother running on feature phones which have lower powered hardware.

Mxit currently has around 7.4 million monthly active users making it the second largest social media network in South Africa after Facebook which has around 9.5 million according to figures from Arthur Goldstuck of World Wide Worx.