Earlier this year WhatsApp introduced multi-device support for the leading chat app. However, to start with the feature wasn’t exactly what users had been hoping for. That’s because, at first, WhatsApp multi-device support was limited to WhatsApp Web, WhatsApp Desktop and Facebook’s Portal smart display. Multiple smartphones weren’t supported with the original release, but it had been hoped this would be added later on. And now it looks like that time is almost here, with the WhatsApp sleuths at WABetaInfo unearthing a ‘multi-device 2.0’ update that will add the ability to use multiple smartphones.
This in-the-works patch would enable WhatsApp users to register a secondary smartphone to use alongside your main account.
For anyone who has an Android device for work and an iPhone for their personal texts, or vice versa, this will be a great addition as you’ll be able to chat to friends on WhatsApp from both devices.
WABetaInfo said the feature is in development at the moment and could also encompass Apple iPad and Android tablets.
The proof of the feature that WABetaInfo discovered was a ‘downloading recent messages’ screen buried within the latest beta code.
This is the same type of loading screen that appears on WhatsApp Web if you join the multi-device beta programme – albeit this UI element is for mobile devices.
Which has led to speculation that multi-device support could be winging its way to smartphones in the future.
The WhatsApp news portal said: “When you open WhatsApp on the second mobile device after some time, WhatsApp will download all messages from the server and this does not require your main phone to be connected to the Internet.
“When you link your second mobile device the first time, WhatsApp will sync the chat history: this process is obviously end-to-end encrypted.
“It’s not yet clear if WhatsApp will reserve this feature only for tablets (WhatsApp for iPad and Android tablets) or mobile phones are included, but there is no evidence that they will exclude mobile phones.”
At the time of writing, a release date for the WhatsApp multi-device 2.0 update is unknown.
But when it arrives it will enable WhatsApp users to have a backup phone loaded up with all of their latest WhatsApp messages.
It remains to be seen if this multi-device support will work across Android and iOS, and vice versa, or not.
If you’re a WhatsApp tester eager to try out this in-demand feature then you’ll also have to wait awhile longer.
That’s because currently the multi-device 2.0 feature isn’t live just yet in the WhatsApp beta.
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