WhatsApp is ditching its native Windows app for a crappy web wrapper
There is some disappointing news for WhatsApp users who like to work with the desktop app. In what appears to be part of a streamlining process, Meta is dropping the UWP app in favor of a web wrapper.
There are advantages and disadvantages to this, but few people who have compared the native Windows app with the web-based version off WhatsApp can have failed to notice the performance difference. The WhatsApp UWP app has always been snappier, more responsive, and used fewer resources, so in some ways it feels like a backwards step to switch to a web wrapper.
As noticed by Windows Latest, Windows 11 users will now have a Chromium-based container to show the web-based version of the messaging tool rather than a dedicated app. But with even WhatsApp support pages pointing to the enhanced performance of the desktop app over the web version (both the Mac and Windows apps are described as being “designed and optimized for your computer’s operating system” and a way to “increase reliability and speed”), what is the thinking here?
WhatsApp has a change of direction
WhatsApp has not said why the change is being made, so we can only make assumptions about the decision. In dropping the UWP app, developers have fewer versions to support which helps to make their lives easier. This not only helps to save time – and therefore money – but also means that problems should be addressed faster, and new features should roll out more quickly.
Between the native Windows app and the web-based version of WhatsApp (web.whatsapp.com), it has always been the web edition that has enjoyed faster development. So, in this regard, switching to a web wrapper is good news for Windows users.
There are areas of concern, though. With the web version of WhatsApp using the Chromium-based Microsoft Edge WebView2, there are serious concerns about performance and resource usage. It is hard to see how things could be optimized to the point that having the web wrapper running in the background won’t impact other running apps.
WhatsApp performance
The move away from a proper native app is hard to understand when WhatsApp says itself: “To improve the WhatsApp experience for desktop users, we've developed native apps for Windows and Mac operating systems. The Windows and Mac apps provide increased performance and reliability, more ways to collaborate, and features to improve your productivity”.
But maybe, now there is not a UWP app to maintain, developers will have spare time to work making the wrapper app faster and faster.
However, it is not just decent performance that WhatsApp user on the desktop will be losing in the switch from UWP to wrapper. Another casualty – at least for the time being – is the ability to use keyboard shortcuts.
At the moment the change is only visible in the beta versions of WhatsApp for Windows, so it is hard to tell just when it will affect all users. There has been nothing said about what is happening with the macOS app, but this seems more likely to remain alive as the code is all but identical for Mac, iPhone and iPad editions.
Clearly not everyone who uses WhatsApp for communication does so on the desktop; many people keep it strictly as a mobile app, or perhaps are completely unaware that a desktop app exists. But for anyone who is a desktop WhatsApper, how do you feel about this? Do you think that this is a step in the wrong direction, or are you actually excited about the possibilities it opens up and what it could mean for the future of the platform?
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