The parent company of WhatsApp, Meta, was deemed a “gatekeeper company” by European Union lawmakers in September of last year, and as a result, it was mandated to make its services available to other users after six months, or by March of this year. This is a part of the same Digital Markets Act that will allow Apple to offer the iPhone to consumers in the European Union, but it appears that WhatsApp’s modifications will also affect users outside of Europe.
As reported by the estimable Matt Burgess at Wired, WhatsApp has only partly been cajoled into this move, having been working on opening things up for around two years.
If you’re like me, you spend more time than you’d like trying to remember if that important message came via iMessage, WhatsApp or Messenger, say. The new system is meant to overcome this annoying circumstance by allowing people to message you at WhatsApp from another app.
The change will mean those other apps can attach themselves to WhatsApp to allow people to chat across apps without denigrating the end-to-end encryption that’s in place.
This interoperability will start with text messages, images, voice messages, videos and file transfer. Calls and group chats will come later, perhaps as much as years afterwards.
Wired quotes Dick Brouwer, an engineering director at WhatsApp, who points out that a core requirement is that users opt in. “I can choose whether or not I want to participate in being open to exchanging messages with third parties,” Brouwer explains. “This is important, because it could be a big source of spam and scams.”
If you do opt in, you’ll see messages from other apps in a separate section that will appear at the top of the inbox, because “these networks are very different,” Brouwer says.
In a sense, it’s a logical extension of what made WhatsApp so popular, especially in Europe: it is platform-agnostic. So, you never needed to worry if your friends had an iPhone or Android phone—WhatsApp could reach them.
Now, you should be able to reach your friends or family without even knowing if their preferred app is Signal, Telegram or iMessage and without the need to download all the apps.
Of course, different standards make this more complicated, so there will be wrinkles to be ironed out in terms of encryption protocols. Meta would prefer it if the Signal encryption protocol, which it uses, is used by other apps, too.
“We think that the best way to deliver this approach is through a solution that is built on WhatsApp’s existing client-server architecture,” Brouwer says.
Which companies will actually connect to WhatsApp is not yet clear, but the fact that it’s about to become a possibility is highly welcome.
February 10 update. There’s been a lot of reaction to the upcoming plan to open WhatsApp up so that messages can appear from other messaging services. And rightly, it’s a very cool update. As TechRadar points out, it’s a move not without its hiccups. The site says about the change, “It’s never simple.” It goes on, “The next bump in the road is that your WhatsApp chats and third-party app chats won’t be able to mingle in one inbox, instead if you opt-in to cross-app messaging your third-party conversations will be put into a separate “third-party chats” inbox – meaning there are some extra taps required to open them.”
And it points out that it seems likely that Apple won’t take up the opportunity to mingle its iMessage system with WhatsApp, “given that Apple has tried hard to stamp out similar initiatives in the past – such as Beeper Mini.” I’d agree with that.
TechRadar concludes: Iinteroperability between chat services is coming but it’ll probably take some time for other services to join Meta’s platforms after it goes live—and it might not feel quite as seamless as we had hoped.”
There’s still a lot to learn with this new capability. The companies that want to get involved will have to sign an agreement with Meta, and the details of such an agreement are not public.
And, as mentioned above, it’s not clear which services—if any—will want to take advantage of this level of interoperability. This will again come back to the contract, but also whether Telegram, Viber and others want to have their messages land in someone else’s system. Let’s hope they do as it will likely be to the consumer’s advantage.
February 11 update. It’s clear that one of the things most tricky in implementing messages from other services appearing in WhatsApp is ensuring security and privacy. Rightly, as those things are paramount and need to be put in place with great care.
It also emerged this week that WhatsApp is closer to finishing a previously announced feature: allowing users to set up a username.
That’s important because it means that you’ll no longer need to share your phone number with someone in order to chat with them on the app.
According to WABetaInfo, which scrutinizes everything WhatsApp does with a forensic level of interest, the company has reached as far as introducing a refined version of the validation process in the latest update in the TestFlight beta program.
We now learn that the username has to be made up of certain characters, that is, letters from A to Z and digits from 0 to 9. So, the username that WABetaInfo came up with, wabetainfo_$test was rejected for having erroneous characters.
The validation process also checks that the username is unique—well, obviously. As the site says, “This update will represent a significant advancement in user privacy and convenience. By introducing usernames, WhatsApp not only enhances security by minimizing the need to share personal phone numbers but also simplifies the process of connecting with others. With the introduction of usernames, users will feel more comfortable initiating chats with new people, as they can communicate without revealing their phone number. In addition, it’s important to note that the refinement of the validation process will ensure that usernames are unique and meet specific criteria to prevent duplication and maintain the integrity of the platform.”
There’s no time frame as to when this useful update, which would sit very well alongside the introduction of messages from third-party apps, will be released. The fact that the validation process is being tested suggests sooner rather than later, but you never know.
I’ll report back when this key update goes live, but in the meantime, at the very least, you could always start working out your desired username, so you’re ready to pounce at the right moment.
