One of the strongest selling points of Apple’s iPad range is the wide range of tablet-optimised apps available via the App Store – but there has always been a glaring omission. WhatsApp.
Despite WhatsApp launching way back in 2009 – I remember paying 59p for the pleasure, back when all my mates were still on Blackberry Messenger – and the first iPad appearing soon after in 2010, there still isn’t a dedicated iPad app.
That’s hard to understand when the chat platform is so popular, with over two billion monthly users sending around 140 billion messages every day, and of those users, I imagine a sizeable percentage also own an iPad. There’s a reason why our tutorial on how to use WhatsApp on iPad is so popular, after all.
Honestly, it seems to be a bit of a trend with Meta-owned companies – popular social media platform Instagram is in a similar position – but I digress. Let’s focus on one app at a time, right?
WhatsApp for iPad is coming… sooner or later
It seems that the head of WhatsApp, Will Cathcart, isn’t deaf to the cries of WhatsApp users around the world, telling The Verge in 2022 that “people have wanted an iPad app for a long time” and that they would “love to do it”.
However, the fact that we’re still discussing this in 2025 showcases just how long this process is taking.
To be fair to WhatsApp and Meta, some progress has been made. The firm quietly launched an iPad-compatible build in TestFlight back in September 2023, but only a tiny cohort of users got access.
Fast forward to early 2025, and WhatsApp surprised us all by expanding the TestFlight beta invitation to more iPad users – though again, it filled up quickly, and no new spaces have been made available since.
Still, the fact that the testing pool was expanded points towards progress being made on the iPad companion app, as slow as it might be.
It’d be easy to assume that, with a larger group being onboarded, we could be close to a release. But, given how Meta has pushed iPad-specific apps onto the back burner to focus on other apps and features in the past, it’s far from a given. I mean, it’s taken us this long to get to this point.
WhatsApp Web is a stopgap, not a solution
If you were to stop Will Cathcart in the street and quiz him about WhatsApp on iPad – something I wouldn’t actually recommend anyone do – I’d imagine he’d point you in the direction of WhatsApp Web.
I get it. It’s a great middle ground, offering the core WhatsApp experience, including sending and receiving messages and media, but it lacks several key features that stop it from being the go-to for iPad users.
The biggest omission is, of course, the lack of notifications via WhatsApp Web. Despite the fact that notifications work on WhatsApp Web in desktop browsers, and that notification support was added back in iPadOS 16.4, you won’t get notified of any incoming notifications when using it via Safari for iPad.
For an instant messaging platform, that’s a pretty damning omission – but it’s not the only one. Smaller features, like your contacts being linked to your primary phone, media not being automatically saved to your gallery and requiring a manual refresh of the page every now and again, all add up to a stopgap, not a solution, for iPad users.
Some have tried to get around the issue by using unofficial WhatsApp for iPad apps, though these come with their own problems, chief among which is that using the apps could get your WhatsApp account banned.
It’s clear that there’s a need for a dedicated WhatsApp for iPad app, and despite clear evidence that it has been in development for at least a year and a half, there’s no sign of a release on the horizon – for now, anyway.
