WhatsApp Adds Option To Use the Same Account on Multiple Phones (theverge.com) 27
WhatsApp users are no longer restricted to using their account on just a single phone. Today, the Meta-owned messaging service is announcing that its multi-device feature -- which previously allowed you to access and send messages from additional Android tablets, browsers, or computers alongside your primary phone -- is expanding to support additional smartphones. From a report: "One WhatsApp account, now across multiple phones" is how the service describes the feature, which it says is rolling out to everyone in the coming weeks. Setting up a secondary phone to use with your WhatsApp account happens after doing a fresh install of the app. Except, rather than entering your phone number during setup and logging in as usual, you instead tap a new "link to existing account" option. This will generate a QR code to be scanned by your primary WhatsApp phone via the "link a device" option in settings. The new feature works across both iOS and Android devices. WhatsApp is pitching the feature as a useful tool for small businesses that might want multiple employees to be able to send and receive messages from the same business number via different phones.
A Meta Product (Score:2)
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It's a business platform. They offer payment services, and paid messaging to customers. See also https://businessmodelanalyst.c... [businessmodelanalyst.com]
So all of your handsets and... (Score:2)
...the one the police cloned from your main one then
VM time! (Score:3)
As long as I'm stuck using this awful thing...I'm now going to set up an Android VM with WhatsApp in it so I don't have so many messaging eggs in one basket.
Now this is innovation (Score:1)
It's amazing how forward-thinking companies like this can come up with useful features that people don't even know they need yet.
Probably not a single user has ever thought to ask for this capability. I sure haven't... I always like to read and type on my one tiny little phone. But Meta engineers knew better, and now if there's anybody out there who has access more than one device, there's a whole new UX available for them!
(Now come to think of it, 40 years ago I could read messages on my school account by
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When you grow up you're realise different people have different needs. Yes, I did use the same account on multiple phones and there is a need for that, there are multiple articles all over the web with various workarounds (linked in TFA too) and even a special app for that on F-droid.
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Whoosh.
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What the OP said in an ironic way is that this is probably the most requested WhatsApp feature. I'd say most WhatsApp users have asked for this feature. And now in their benevolence, years later, Facebook has finally acquiesced to grant us this wish.
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Well, here's one reason that will blow your mind. Back-up phone.
When I bought a new phone, the old one was still usable, and I kept it around as a back-up phone in case the main one goes tits-up.
It would have been nice for WhatsApp to be enabled on both devices at the same time, even though one is almost always turned off.
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(Now come to think of it, 40 years ago I could read messages on my school account by going down to the lab and using a VT-100 terminal, OR by dialing in from my bedroom on my C64, but I digress.)
It's all part of the 21st century tech marketing technique of disabling a feature that has existed forever, then re-enabling it, in a crippled way, to much fanfare and self-congratulation.
Another shining example was when Apple graciously allowed "tethering" on their devices. You know, using a phone as a modem? Which had been built-in to the GSM spec since the 1990s? Or like you did with your C64 over the wired phone network in the 1980s.
Many accts, one phone, please. Not vice versa. (Score:2)
What we want is WhatsApp to handle more than one account in the same phone.
What they want is to be able to link multiple phones to the same account.
Way to respond to market needs, WhatsApp.
Not bad (Score:1)
Not bad per-se, give you could actually just use multiple logins across browsers in any device. But how about an official iPad app?
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Tablets? (Score:2)
Now wonder whether WhatsApp will choose to make an official app for tablets, such as the iPad?
So not a new feature, then (Score:2)
They are expanding a feature has worked on most phones to work on more phones?
Jesus, and we call this news..
No WhatsApp for ipad and... (Score:2)
I use WhatsApp to communicate with family and friends. It is easy to use and is cross platform. Good enough. I do wish that I could use it on an ipad. I am surprised that this isn't an option. Also, on Windows, they recently started using the Microsoft store to distribute it. I use Windows Server 2022 on my workstation. There is no Windows Store for Windows server. This gets annoying as I am stuck with an older version now.
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There seem to be a cross-platform FOSS client https://github.com/oOthkOo/wha... [github.com]
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You missed nothing. The, ahem, "new" Microsoft Store app sucks donkey balls. It's riddled with bugs.
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If you can manage to get hold of the appx package from the store, you can sideload it using Powershell. Server supports the modern apps just fine - it just doesn't support the store itself.
You could probably just install the app on a Windows 10 machine and copy the extracted Appx folder and sideload from there.
Add-AppxPackage -Path PATH-TO-APPXFILEFOLDER\AppxManifest.xml -Register
So ... (Score:2)
your burner phones can all have whatsapp on them ??? How convenient !
Using Whatsapp can get you killed (Score:3)
Using Whatsapp can get you killed, Just ask Jamal Khashoggi. Jeff Bezos also is not a fan [theguardian.com].
The cool kids are using free, open-source Signal these days don't you know?
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Web app (Score:1)
Why can't they make the Web app more than just typed chat? Skype manage it just fine.
Actually, I wonder why people prefer whatsapp over skype. Does whatsapp do anything that skype doesn't?
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Does whatsapp do anything that skype doesn't?
Yes, it uploads all your metadata to facebook's ad farm instead of uploading it to microsoft, and whatever microsoft does with it.
Re: Web app (Score:1)
So, no. OK.