WhatsApp Launches Wear OS App in Beta
- Laurent Giret
- May 09, 2023
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WhatsApp has quietly released a beta version of an app for Google’s Pixel Watch and other Wear OS smartwatches (via WABetaInfo). The app currently lets users send text and voice messages, see their contacts, and more.
While Wear OS users could already see WhatsApp notifications on their wrists (the Apple Watch can do the same), this new Wear OS app is quite a big deal for an operating system that may not get the same level of attention as Apple’s watchOS. However, the recent release of Google’s Pixel Watch may help the platform to get more momentum.
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Even though WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging apps on the market with over 2 billion users worldwide, the company is notoriously slow to iterate. Features you may take for granted such as seamless multi-device support were late to arrive, and the company only added the ability to use the same account on multiple phones last month. There’s still no official WhatsApp app for the Apple Watch or the iPad, however.
If you want to test this new beta Wear OS app, you’ll need to sign up for the WhatsApp beta on the Play Store. After installing the latest beta, the new smartwatch app will ask you to link your WhatsApp account to your Wear OS device.