WhatsApp replaces the iPad tab bar with a Mac-style sidebar by default

A support rep opens the shared iPad, gets to step three of the runbook, and reads that the next thing to do is tap Chats at the bottom of the screen. There are no tabs at the bottom of the screen. There is a sidebar down the left.

The way this is arriving is what makes it awkward to manage. WABetaInfo says the sidebar is reaching some testers on the latest TestFlight build, and that some people on the regular App Store version are also starting to see it ^[6]. So the version number in Settings will not tell a team lead which layout a colleague is looking at, and 9to5Mac says WhatsApp rollouts often take a while to reach everyone on either channel ^[9].

Here is what users do when the chrome moves: they tap where the control was, then they start hunting. Here is what teams tell themselves users do: read step three, find the named control, proceed.

The report names five sidebar destinations and then says "other sections of the app," so a doc that lists the navigation cannot be exhaustive from what has been published ^[3][10]. Hiding is supported, and the effect is described precisely. "When users hide the sidebar, WhatsApp expands the chat list and the conversation toward the center of the screen, making both feel less compressed," WABetaInfo wrote ^[5]. The report does not say whether hiding it brings the bottom tab bar back ^[11].

For a team that documents WhatsApp workflows, the useful sort is by what each step names. A step that names a position on screen (the bottom bar, the third tab from the left, the icon under the keyboard) depends on chrome the vendor changes on its own schedule, and you find out it broke when a rep messages the channel. A step that names a destination ("open Chats", "open Calls") survives a navigation change and costs nothing extra to write. The same test sorts your image library: a cropped shot of a conversation ages slowly, a full-app shot with the tab bar in frame is wrong the moment the default flips for that person.

I would spend the editing pass before the reshoot. Stripping position words out of the steps works for both layouts at once and takes one person an afternoon. The tradeoff is real: a step that says "open Chats" and not where Chats is gives a new hire less to go on, and someone will ask.