WhatsApp, the popular messaging service owned by Meta Platforms Inc, introduced a standalone Apple Watch app that makes it easier for users to interact with their chats from Apple Inc’s smartwatch without pulling out an iPhone.
The software also includes features such as call notifications, the ability to record and send voice messages, full-length message previews and message reactions, bringing WhatsApp more in line with what Apple’s own messaging app can already do on the watch.
Until now, Apple Watch owners could view WhatsApp notifications and respond to messages using the smartwatch, but a standalone app should significantly improve the overall experience. Other enhancements include clearer images and stickers, plus the ability to view more of a chat history on the Apple Watch display.
Meta in a statement described Tuesday’s app release as "just the start” of enhancing the WhatsApp experience for Apple Watch users and said additional features are planned for the coming months.
The company already offers a version of WhatsApp for Wear OS, the Android-based platform underpinning smartwatches from Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Samsung Electronics Co. and other brands.
Meta in 2023 discontinued its Apple Watch app for a different messaging platform, Messenger. Earlier this month, the company outlined similar plans to deprecate Messenger for macOS.
But for the time being, Meta seems committed to elevating WhatsApp across Apple’s platforms. The Apple Watch app arrives several months after WhatsApp introduced ads and channel subscriptions as a new revenue stream for the enormously popular service, which is used by over 3 billion people monthly. – Bloomberg
