WhatsApp is getting a dedicated app on Wear OS this year. Finally. At Google I/O 2023, which was live streamed from the Shoreline Amphitheatre at the company’s headquarters in Mountain View, California, last night, the tech giant announced a host of new features and functionalities coming to its Android ecosystem, including Wear OS. Among the long list of features coming to Android smartwatches this year is a dedicated WhatsApp app.
Until now, Android device users could check notifications from WhatsApp on their Wear OS-powered smartwatches. However, functions beyond that remained out of reach for most people. But that will soon change when Meta rolls out a version of WhatsApp that has been customised for Wear OS-powered smartwatches.
WhatsApp’s new Wear OS app will not only let users to reply to messages by voice, but it will also enable users to answer voice calls. What’s great about this app is that all the conversations on its platform will be protected by the end-to-end encryption, which is something the company also uses in its apps on other platforms including iOS, Android, web, Windows and macOS.
“When WhatsApp launches its first-ever smartwatch app in the coming weeks, you’ll be able to securely start a new conversation, reply to messages by voice and answer calls from your Wear OS watch — all without taking out your phone,” Google wrote in a blog post.
Later, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg tweeted out more details about WhatsApp’s Wear OS app on his official Instagram channel called the Meta Channel.
“Announced at Google I/O that we’re shipping the first WhatsApp smartwatch app on Wear OS later this year. You’ll be able to start new conversations, reply to messages, and take calls on your wrist,” Zuckerberg wrote.
What else do we know?
It is worth noting that even before Google and Meta shared their plans of rolling out a dedicated version of WhatsApp for Wear OS, WABetaInfo divulged details of what we should expect from WhatsApp’s Wear OS app.
As per the blog site, the Meta-owned messaging app has rolled out a beta version of the WhatsApp on Play Store for Wear OS. The app, as of now, let’s users to stay connected and access their chats and messages directly from their smartwatch. “At the moment, the app includes features like chat messaging and voice messages,” the blog site wrote, adding, “At the moment, the smartwatch app seems to be unavailable for the WhatsApp Business app, even if you try to install the latest update.”
The post WhatsApp is officially coming to Wear OS-powered smartwatches this year appeared first on Techlusive.
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