WhatsApp is working on something that iPad users have been wanting for a long time. According to recent reports, the messaging app is testing out a new design that puts a sidebar on the left side of the screen, and this could completely change how people use WhatsApp on their tablets. For anyone who’s tried using WhatsApp on an iPad, you know it hasn’t always felt like it was really built for the bigger screen. This update could finally fix that.
The current WhatsApp experience is such that everything feels stretched out and not really optimized for the extra screen space you have on a tablet. It’s like they just took the phone version and made it bigger without thinking about how people actually use iPads. But this new sidebar approach shows that WhatsApp is finally paying attention to what tablet users need.
What makes this sidebar interesting is how it’s supposed to work. Instead of having everything stacked vertically like on a phone, the sidebar sits on the left edge of your screen and stays there while you’re using the app.
Think about how you use other apps on your iPad. Apps like Mail or Notes have that sidebar where you can see your list of emails or notes, and then the main content shows up on the right side. It just makes sense because you have all that horizontal space to work with. WhatsApp’s new design follows that same logic.
The sidebar itself will show your list of chats, just like what you see now, but having it permanently visible on the left changes everything about how quickly you can move around the app.
Right now, when you’re reading a message from someone, you have to go back to see your other chats, then pick another one, and it’s all very linear. With the sidebar, you can be in the middle of a conversation with one person and instantly jump to another chat without all that backing out and going back in. It’s faster and feels more natural on a bigger screen.
This also means you can see more at once. When you’re chatting with someone, the conversation takes up the main part of the screen on the right, but you can still glance at your sidebar to see if new messages are coming in from other people. You don’t have to choose between reading one chat and keeping an eye on everything else happening. It’s all right there in your field of vision, which is exactly how tablet apps should work when you have all that screen space available.
For people who use WhatsApp for work or manage a lot of group chats, this sidebar design could make a huge difference. Imagine you’re in a work group chat and someone mentions something that makes you need to check a one-on-one conversation with a colleague. Instead of leaving the group chat, finding that person’s name in your list, reading their message, and then navigating back to the group, you just tap their chat in the sidebar. The group chat is still there waiting for you. It’s the kind of thing that sounds small but adds up when you’re doing it dozens of times a day.
The reports about this feature don’t give us every detail yet, but it looks like WhatsApp is still testing different versions to see what works best.
They probably want to make sure the sidebar doesn’t feel cluttered, that it’s easy to resize or hide if you want more room for your main conversation, and that it fits with the rest of WhatsApp’s design. Getting all those details right takes time, but it’s worth doing properly because iPad users are going to be living with this interface every day.
One thing worth mentioning is that this isn’t WhatsApp inventing something completely new. Other messaging apps and tablet applications have been using sidebars for years because they work so well on larger screens. What matters here is that WhatsApp is finally catching up and bringing that same thoughtful tablet design to its own app. For the millions of people who use WhatsApp on their iPads, having an interface that actually feels built for that device instead of just adapted from a phone is a big deal.
There’s also the question of when this will actually arrive. WhatsApp often tests features for weeks or even months before rolling them out to everyone.
The company likes to be careful about changes, especially ones that affect the core navigation of the app. They’ll probably start with a small group of beta testers, see how people use it, make adjustments based on feedback, and then slowly expand it to more users. This is smart because it means by the time most people get the update, the bugs are worked out and the design is polished.
Some people might wonder if this sidebar will eventually come to other tablets beyond iPads.
That’s a reasonable question since Android tablets exist too, and they face a lot of the same issues with WhatsApp not feeling optimized for their screens. Right now the reports specifically mention iPad, but there’s no reason the same design approach couldn’t work on Android tablets. WhatsApp tends to test new features on one platform first and then bring them to others if things go well, so Android tablet users might be waiting a little longer, but the sidebar could get to them eventually.
The bigger picture here is that WhatsApp is starting to treat tablets as more than just big phones. That’s an important shift. For a long time, it felt like tablet users were an afterthought, getting the same experience as phone users even though they had completely different needs. This sidebar update suggests WhatsApp understands that tablets deserve their own thoughtful design that takes advantage of larger screens and different usage patterns. That’s good news not just for this one feature, but for what it might mean about future updates too.
If you’re someone who mainly uses WhatsApp on your phone, this update probably won’t matter much to you. But if you’re an iPad user who’s been frustrated with how cramped and inefficient the app feels, this sidebar could be exactly what you’ve been waiting for.
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