WhatsApp is currently one of the most popular cross-platform messaging applications and it has been able to gain that popularity with the help of the features that it continues to add to the platform. The Facebook-owned giant is now finally rolling out the much-awaited multi-device support as a part of a limited public beta test.
As many WhatsApp users have requested, the multi-device feature will finally let users access the messaging platform on their phone and up to four other non-phone devices simultaneously. Yes, you can still access WhatsApp on your computer but that requires your phone to stay connected to the internet at all times. With the new feature, you would not need that.
While your smartphone will still remain the primary device to access WhatsApp, you will still be able to send and receive messages from other non-phone devices. This means that the WhatsApp app could also be soon available on iPadOS for Apple iPad users.
In a blog post on the Facebook engineering website, the company claims that with the new multi-device support, “each companion device will connect to your WhatsApp independently while maintaining the same level of privacy and security through end-to-end encryption…”
How to get the multi-device feature on WhatsApp?
As of now, the feature is being rolled out to a limited number of beta users. This means that if you are running the regular stable version of WhatsApp, you will not be able to experience the feature for now. Even if you are running the beta version, it is not confirmed whether you will get to try it out or not. However, the company will soon be rolling out the update for everyone.
How does it work?
According to the blog post by the company, “WhatsApp’s legacy architecture used a smartphone as the source of truth. But with the new multi-device capability, up to four other non-phone companion devices can connect to WhatsApp independently while still maintaining the same level of privacy and security.”
The blog post further mentions, “WhatsApp server securely stores a copy of each application state that all of someone’s devices can access. To properly secure this, all the information, and even the metadata about the information (what kind of user data is stored or accessed), is end-to-end encrypted with constantly changing keys known only to that person’s devices.”
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