WhatsApp has completely revamped its Apple Watch app – and you’ll now be able to properly read and respond to full messages with full chat suppprt. Before you could only really see basic notifications and send rudimentary responses.
The Apple Watch app will also show you call notifications, while you can record and send voice notes as well. The hardware requirements are very accommodating, requiring Apple Watch Series 4 or later, running watchOS 10 or later which is better than Apple’s own support – Series 6 is the oldest Apple Watch still officially supported by Apple.
Here’s a full list of what’s in the new WhatsApp for Apple Watch:
- Call notifications: You can see who’s calling without needing to look at your iPhone.
- Full messages: You can read full WhatsApp messages on Apple Watch — even long messages are visible directly from your wrist.
- Voice messages: You can now record and send voice messages.
- React to messages: We’ve added the ability to send quick emoji reactions to messages you receive.
- A great media experience: You’ll see clear images and stickers on your Apple Watch.
- Chat history: You can see more of your chat history on screen when reading messages.
Meta says this “is just the start of making WhatsApp on your Apple Watch an even better experience… We look forward to delivering even more useful functionality for people with Apple Watch in the future.” So expect more features to debut.
The upgrade of WhatsApp on Apple Watch is the latest in a handful of long-awaited 2025 launches from Meta on Apple devices, including the long-awaited iPad apps for WhatsApp and Instagram.
These moves almost certainly point to some greater cooperation between the two companies after a falling out over the loss in revenue from Facebook after Apple introduced a way for users to opt-out from ad tracking in iOS 14.5 and later during early 2021.
