WhatsApp makes beta of macOS app publicly available

The speed doesn’t differ that much for me, although that may be because I still have an Intel Mac. Uses much less RAM, 80MB at boot vs. 300MB.

I think the UI is terrible. The app cannot be made narrower than that which takes up half your laptop screen. This makes it difficult to place your chat next to your primary work window (useful if, for example, you receive inputs via Whatsapp while working in Word, just to name an example). Furthermore, it also reads unpleasant to have your own messages aligned to the right and the messages of the other link, which works with a narrow window where the messages still come under each other, but now you have to move your eyes continuously as if you are watching tennis if you want to read back a conversation.

The web version was already a bit wide, but even that was narrower than this. While the same maker (ie Meta) can do just fine with the Messenger app, which has almost the same functionality. Well this is a beta, so hopefully a UI/UX team will come and take a look at this app soon. Because now this app is only a decline except for the lower RAM consumption. Until then, it is hoped that the current stable branch of the app will continue to receive security updates.