Meta today announced that the WhatsApp app is now natively available on iPad. It’s a news that’s been years in the offing, and finally the company seems to have decided that it can actually ship a WhatsApp app that works on a larger screen than a 6-inch iPhone.
The company announced the news via an official post on the WhatsApp Blog (link), as well as a tweet that links directly to the App Store listing for the app.
You can download the WhatsApp iPad app from the App Store now (Free)
The new WhatsApp app for iPad will get pretty much all the features that you’ll find in the iPhone app. You can obviously message all your contacts and groups, plus the app supports group calling with up to 32 participants, using the front and back cameras on your iPad for video calls, and also screen sharing support on iPad.
Also noteworthy is the fact that the iPad app isn’t just the iPhone app in a new wrapper, but the company has taken full advantage of the multi-tasking capabilities of the iPad’s larger screen. The WhatsApp iPad app supports iPadOS’ multi-tasking features including Slide Over, Split View, and Stage Manager. This means you will be able to chat with friends while browsing the internet, or follow along with your favorite team’s match on a weekend while discussing the details with your fan-friends.
Toasty Take
Do you know how long it’s been since I first started wondering why Meta wasn’t releasing a native iPad app for WhatsApp? Well, for one thing, the company was called Facebook back then, and WhatsApp didn’t have any of the Instagram-like features it now peddles in scores.
Then, a few years ago, Meta announced that it’s beta-testing a WhatsApp iPad app! “Hooray,” I thought; but oh, how naive I was. Years came and went and the WhatsApp app remained in beta. A beta, by the way, that I was never able to try out, leaving me to use silly workarounds like using WhatsApp Web.
Now that the company has finally launched the app on WhatsApp, it feels quite nice. The only problem is that I’m now so used to using WhatsApp Web on my iPad, or simply using the iPhone Mirroring feature on my Mac to directly open WhatsApp on my iPhone, that this app feels second-hand to me.
That said, I am excited about having the native app on my iPad finally, and it feels weird that it took Meta over 15 years to get to this point. But hey, we got WhatsApp for iPad before GTA 6.
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