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Instead, it still requires you to link your iPhone or other smartphone with a WhatsApp account. It’s worth noting that the new WhatsApp app for macOS is not a standalone WhatsApp client. When it comes to sending and receiving regular messages and calls, everything works fine – and the app is definitely faster than the Electron version. 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.
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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 … 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.
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