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Hell has frozen over. Well at least that’s what it seemed like would have to happen before WhatsApp launched….an iPad app for Apple’s popular tablet.
And it’s available now through the App Store.
Yes, 15 years after the debut of Apple’s tablet and 16 years after the launch of the independent WhatsApp (before it was swallowed by Meta) we finally have what the company itself admits was one of its ‘biggest requests’. And no wonder. According to DataReportal, WhatsApp is used by around a quarter of the world’s population. Over 2bn people. Yep.
So the question remains why it has taken so long to do an app for the world’s most popular tablet. Head of WhatsApp Will Cathcart stated in a 2022 interview with The Verge that “people have wanted an iPad app for a long time… We’d love to do it”.
Clearly not so much as to do it within the last three years, leaving iPad users in the odd place of having to use WhatsApp through the browser. And that’s even though the app has been available natively on macOS for some years (used as a paired device with your phone) and was revamped in 2023 alongside the Windows equivalent.
Could it have been that Meta didn’t want to make it easy for the iPad to grow among its users, harboring hopes of its own tablet range? Or is it simply that the app was traditionally tied to a phone number? Perhaps, but maybe we won’t find out until the email appears as part of some future court case or other public record.
In any case, the iPad app is the same app you’ll know and love from your iOS or Android phone so you can message all those time-consuming groups and make video and audio calls with up to 32 people, share your screen. You can once again use both front and back cameras.
It also works with the iPad’s multitasking capabilities including Split View and Slide Over as well as the much-maligned Stage Manager so you can use another app while you’re on a video call or sending a message.
As the WhatsApp blog post states, Stage Manager is available on iPad Pro with M4, iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation and later), iPad Pro 11-inch (1st generation and later) and iPad Air (5th generation), iPad Air 11-inch (M2 and later), iPad Air 13-inch (M2 and later).
Oh, and WhatsApp also works with Apple Pencil as well as any Bluetooth keyboard or Magic Keyboard as you’d expect.
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