You can now sign up for a WhatsApp account from an iPad

No phone number, no problem.

WhatsApp is continuing to distance itself from previous requirements around phone numbers. Users can now sign up for accounts directly on an iPad, meaning no phone number is needed to get started on the platform. Rather than using your digits, new users can now simply pick a username, which just became an option for WhatsApp a few weeks ago.

Usernames are pretty commonplace for social media, but WhatsApp has been notoriously slow-moving in some respects. For instance, while rival messengers like Telegram have long been available on almost every platform, WhatsApp only released an official iPad app last year, 15 years after Apple debuted its tablet line.

The Meta-owned business added a few other quality of life improvements today. Access more of WhatsApp while you're on the go with a revamped experience via Android Auto and Apple CarPlay interfaces. The previously voice-focused experience now has an interface where you can access your call history, favorites, chats and read unread messages from your car screen.

Elsewhere in today's refresh there's now in-app access to viewing and editing PDFs thanks to a tie-in with Adobe Acrobat. Finally, users pining for the days of AIM can now set songs from Apple Music or Spotify as their WhatsApp status.