Of course, as this is a very early beta, these features are likely to be implemented in future updates. There are some features that are still not working properly like Status, group calls, location sharing, and audio messages. Other than that, the app works just as you expect. A new sidebar lets users access the same tabs available in the iOS app, which are: Chats, Calls, Archived, Starred, and Settings.

The new app looks quite different from WhatsApp Desktop, as it is based on WhatsApp for iPhone (and the upcoming iPad version).ĩto5Mac was able to try out the new WhatsApp beta app for macOS.

Apple’s Catalyst technology is designed to let developers bring iOS apps to Mac in a way that allows them to run smoothly and efficiently, and WhatsApp has taken advantage of this. The main WhatsApp Mac app is essentially just an Electron wrapper for the web app, making it somewhat clunky and resource-hungry. The app is now available to all Mac users, though is still officially considered a beta version … Now that it's in a full beta, though, you can download it directly from WhatsApp's website.A beta of a Catalyst-based WhatsApp Mac app was made available back in June last year, but only to a limited number of users via TestFlight. The native macOS app has been around for several months on TestFlight, but that only offers limited slots for testers. It looks much the same as the Mac app and also offers increased reliability and speed. Last year, WhatsApp released a native version for Windows 10 that works without the need for a smartphone. In 2021, Meta said that it was expanding multi-device support for WhatsApp, leading to speculation that an iPad app was forthcoming. Since the Mac was developed on Catalyst, that lends some hope that a long-awaited version may also come to iOS. You also get a new interface with three panels to easily flip between chats, calls, archived and starred messages, while seeing contacts and interactions at a glance.Īpple's Catalyst was designed to allow developers to port iOS apps over to macOS or create just one version that can run on either platform. The new app is optimized for Mac hardware and built with Mac Catalyst, so it should be faster and more efficient than the current web-wrapped Electron version. Mac users who have been waiting for a native version of WhatsApp can now download it without restrictions, WaBetaInfo has reported.

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