WhatsApp Head on launching an iPad app: "We'd love to do it"

The head of WhatsApp has a message for those who have been demanding a native iPad app: don't lose hope.

"People have wanted an iPad app for a long time." Will Cathcart, the head of WhatsApp at its parent company Meta, told The Verge during an interview this week tied to a new US marketing push for the messaging app. "We'd love to do it."

Like Instagram for iPad, a version of WhatsApp for Apple's tablet has long eluded users despite being a much-requested feature. And while Cathcart wouldn't go so far as to commit to releasing an iPad version, his feedback suggests one may be built in the near future, especially now that WhatsApp has created the underlying technology necessary for such a thing to happen. client works. job.

"We did a lot of work on the technology for supporting multiple devices," Cathcart said, referencing the rollout of opt-in, multi-device support for WhatsApp last year. "Our web and our desktop apps now have that. If I have multi-device on, I can turn my phone off or lose my network connection and still get messages on my desktop. That would be really important for a tablet app, to be able to use the app even if your phone isn't on. So the underlying technology is there."

Due to the way WhatsApp encrypts messages, it historically hasn't been able to sync chats between devices over the internet the way most other messaging apps work. So if WhatsApp on your phone didn't have internet access, the desktop client didn't work. The beta version of multi-device support allows you to sync your WhatsApp account on up to four devices at once, a process that involves mapping device identifiers to an account key on WhatsApp servers in a way that is still available today. encrypted. Now that such a sync technology exists, there is a strong possibility that one of WhatsApp for iPad is finally on the horizon.