If you love your Apple Watch, but are not a fan of the limited functionality, you’ll be glad to hear that WhatsApp has released an update making its messaging service available on the smartwatch. It’s a great feature if you want to stay in touch with your friends and family without having to take out your phone to do so. Of course, the question remains, how do you use WhatsApp on your Apple Watch? Read on to find out!
Steps To Set Up WhatsApp On Apple Watch
- On your iPhone, open the App Store and download WhatsApp for free.
- After downloading and installing WhatsApp, open it and log in with your phone number (or a phone number of someone you want to text). The app will now show your account name as John Doe.
- On your iPhone, open Settings->General->Restrictions and turn off In-App Purchases by putting a yes next to it or tapping Allow Everyone or All Accounts. This prevents people from running up large bills while using this app because of its nature as a texting service.
- Open the watch app on your iPhone and select WhatsApp (to start syncing with the device)
- Tap Continue when prompted about privacy permissions
- You can use your watch to reply to messages or create new ones without ever having to take out your phone .
To do so, follow these steps:
- Find the message notification on your watch face that is waiting for a response
- Swipe right to reply with an emoji or preset text response
- Swipe left to create a new message
- Long press to change the type of media sent – pictures, location, voice memos , contacts, etc. When there are no more messages waiting on your phone, the app icon will change to X. If you leave the apps main page and return to it later, then it’ll show a full list of all unread messages. Note: if there are not any notifications or unread texts on your watch then when you go back into the app, it’ll still be showing a list of all messages.
When Can I Expect A Response From My Contact?
As of now, WhatsApp is only available for iPhones. There are no reports of a WhatsApp app release date for the Apple Watch. It is not yet known if such an app will be released in the future. The major issue with using WhatsApp on your watch is that it would require you to read messages by taking your phone out and reading them, as you cannot send or receive messages from your watch due to lack of keyboard.
Another downside is that the Messages app can’t be customized with third-party keyboards like you can do on iOS devices. In addition, most people use voice messages (or video) instead of text to communicate because it’s easier and faster than typing out a message. For these reasons, WhatsApp on the Apple Watch isn’t a particularly useful feature.
However, as WhatsApp becomes more popular, there may be a need for this service in the future. With the popularity of Apple Watches, there may be hope for WhatsApp eventually coming to this device. If someone is away from their iPhone and needs to respond quickly to a text message they received on their watch, they could simply reply via voice message without having to take their phone out of their pocket.
A potential new user could also see how much time they have left before getting off work by looking at the time left in their day, then checking how many messages they have waiting for them on WhatsApp— which would make it easier for them to get back into contact with others.
What Can And Can’t I Do With WhatsApp On The Apple Watch?
When first released, WhatsApp for Apple have a limited feature set, but as of January 18th it has been updated with more features. You can send text messages and group chats, voice messages and videos up to 15 seconds in length.
When receiving an incoming message, you’ll get a notification to your watch – no matter what you’re doing – and can tap the notification or reject it by shaking your wrist to remove it from your screen. What you can’t do is read full conversations- if someone texts you are we still meeting?, then another person responds yes! you won’t be able to see that response when using the messaging service from WhatsApp on Apple Watch.
The only way to view a complete conversation thread is through the iPhone app. Additionally, you cannot record audio or video on your watch- all recordings will come from your phone’s camera. And lastly, there’s no way to reply to messages or control any other settings for WhatsApp on Apple Watch- everything must be done through the iPhone app.