WhatsApp is seemingly one step closer to rolling out support for one account running on multiple devices. According to the latest beta update for WhatsApp on Android, which comes as WhatsApp for Android Beta 2.20.143, the app shows a new loading screen that follows the main registration screen, which asks users to connect to a Wi-Fi network to proceed further. As revealed by WABetaInfo, attempting to ignore the Wi-Fi connection prompt shows an alert that says, "Using mobile data may be slow, and may use a large amount of your data plan."
Earlier this month, a preceding beta update had showed a new option to log in to a new device using a WhatsApp account, while being active on one device already. According to a post on Twitter, the 'Scan QR code' that may feature on WhatsApp's new interface would come with a sub-text that clearly states "use WhatsApp on other devices". This is deemed as a very useful feature, and allow users to simultaneously load the same account on two smartphones, or a smartphone and a tablet. At the moment, it is not quite clear if the multi-device support for WhatsApp would also bring cross-platform usability to WhatsApp as well, such as being simultaneously operational on both Android and iOS.
From what it seems like right now, WhatsApp prompting the use of Wi-Fi while logging in to a device may be because the chat history linked to a WhatsApp account would be transferred between devices, which may be a sizeable file for long time or frequent users of WhatsApp. More importantly, the appearance of the new lock screen suggests that WhatsApp might be inching closer to the unveiling of the much awaited multi device support.
However, it is important to note that this does not quite mean that using WhatsApp on multiple devices will become a reality imminently. WhatsApp's much in-demand Dark Mode, which was the most discussed feature for the app in 2019, was in beta for months before being rolled out as a stable update in recent times. With the beta features suggesting that this new feature will make it to WhatsApp for sure, it now remains only a question of when.
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