WhatsApp to get iPad, multi-phone support

WhatsApp has been the number one messaging in the world for a while—which is no small thing—but it isn’t without its own set of drawbacks.

For one, it can only be activated on one phone at a time, despite the beta version allowing a limited pool of testers to download it to 3 other devices (not including phones or tablets). Another nuisance is that it has never been supported on iPads or other tablets—making this one less way you can communicate on your brand new iPad mini 6, unfortunately.

However, both of these things may be about to change, if a new rumor by WaBetaInfo is to be believed. The media outlet reports, based on exclusive screenshots provided by WhatsApp, that the company is actively working on integrating iPad support for the messaging app, as well as a second phone.

So far, users have only had the ability to link up to 4 devices to their WhatsApp account, but only a single phone. The new screenshot provided by WaBetaInfo shows the syncing screen of WhatsApp messages being downloaded to a second device, which is clearly a phone by its rectangular shape.

Anyone who is already a lucky beta user of the multi-device support feature that’s being developed right now may have seen this screen before on WhatsApp for desktop or WhatsApp Web, but never before on a second phone.

As is visible in the screenshot, just like any other WhatsApp chat history backup or transfer, the whole syncing process of the messages is protected with end-to-end encryption.

If you are one of the millions of people who both own a tablet and regularly use WhatsApp, the lack of this important feature has probably annoyed you at some point as well.

But another screenshot by WaBetaInfo doubtlessly points to the fact that WhatsApp is hard at work creating a compatible version of the app for iPadOS and, by the looks of it, making progress.

Although it’s an iPad in the screenshot, WaBetaInfo has tweeted that the Android tablet version is also definitely in the works.

Competing messaging app Telegram already supports the addition of as many phones, and tablets, as you own—which has been one of the reasons some WhatsApp users have turned towards that platform instead, despite it ranking lower on the popularity tier.

It’s definitely about time that WhatsApp got to work on including multi-phone and tablet support and, as it does currently sit at the top of the hill when it comes to messaging apps, it can hardly afford to lag behind in such important features for its users.