WhatsApp has dramatically expanded support for CarPlay – making it easier to stay in touch with friends and family when you're behind the wheel. While it has always been possible to see incoming notifications from WhatsApp contacts and group chats via CarPlay, there wasn't a complete app that mirrored the experience on your iPhone.
Instead, drivers could need to rely on AI voice assistant Siri to send messages. With the latest update, that's changed, with copilots now able to scroll through complete message history, launch chats with WhatsApp contacts, and more.
For those who don't know, CarPlay brings your iPhone to the infotainment screen inside your vehicle. Plug in — or, in many newer cars, connect wirelessly — and you'll be presented with a cleaner, simpler way to use applications like Apple Maps, Music, and Calendar, as well as juggling incoming text messages and calls while driving.
When connected to a CarPlay-compatible vehicle, iOS will take over the screen inside the vehicle — bringing familiar icons, saved contacts, message history, and a slew of apps from your iPhone
|APPLE PRESS OFFICE
It's designed to reduce any need to look at your iPhone, keeping icons big, bright and easy to tap. Third-party developers can also update their iPhone apps to support CarPlay, so you can navigate via Google Maps or Waze, if you have either of those apps installed on your handset.
And now, WhatsApp has added full support for CarPlay to its messaging platform. For those who rely on the chat app — the most popular on the planet, with over 3 billion monthly active users — to keep in touch with friends and family, this is a very helpful upgrade that promises less distraction on the road.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
Apple spotlights WhatsApp as one of the popular third-party apps that has been updated to support its CarPlay interface
|APPLE PRESS OFFICE
Update to the latest version of WhatsApp on your iPhone to unlock the new features. The new app arrives with a native CarPlay interface that scales to the infotainment screen inside your vehicle, presenting you with a comprehensive list of recent calls and chats, alongside a tab for favourite contacts.
WhatsApp has added quick access buttons to send a message via dictation or place a call.
The team behind WhatsApp, which is owned by Meta — the same parent company behind Facebook and Instagram, has added support for a slew of different Apple-designed gadgets in recent months. Over a decade after its launch, WhatsApp has launched a fully-featured application for the Apple Watch.
The messaging platform has also recently launched on iPad, one of the biggest omissions for the bestselling tablet.
But that doesn't mean those on rival platforms, like Android or Windows, haven't seen any recent changes from the WhatsApp team. Meta recently rolled out an "extreme safeguard" to lock down your messages.
Known as Strict Account Settings, this optional, lockdown-style security feature is designed to batten down the hatches to reduce your vulnerability to cyber attack. To do this, it limits some of the functionality built into the chat app to protect high-profile users, like politicians or celebrities, who believe they're under threat from a sophisticated hack.
For everyone else, the end-to-end encryption will be enough to keep messages from prying eyes ...something that can no longer be said about messages sent via Instagram.
Earlier this year, WhatsApp introduced so-called "member tags" to help identify yourself in Group Chats, as well as special text stickers, and event reminders so you'll never forget about upcoming plans organised in a chat.