Multi-device support is coming to WhatsApp but there’s a catch

Let’s hope it’s a temporary solution and there’ll be proper multi-device support somewhere along the line. According to the screenshot in question, multi-device will initially include up to 4 devices (WhatsApp Web, WhatsApp Desktop, Facebook Portal smart display), plus one smartphone.

The good news is that you won’t need to stay connected on your phone in order to use WhatsApp on one or all of the linked devices. You’ll also be able to migrate your chat history between iOS and Android, and voice and video calls will work across all linked devices.

There are some prerequisites for the aforementioned WhatsApp experience to actually happen. You’ll need to update all linked devices to the latest version of the app (when it becomes available), and you won’t be able to message or call your friends if they use an outdated version of WhatsApp.

There’s no firm release date for these new features, though. At the beginning of June, Mark Zuckerberg and Head of WhatsApp Will Cathcart said in an interview that multi-device support is two months away, so we can expect the beta to arrive in late July or early August. In the same interview they also confirmed that WhatsApp plans to add account verification via phone calls, so we're expecting a slew of new features in the upcoming release.