Lately, the changes that Apple will make to iOS in the European Union have made headlines. The Cupertino company will authorize the distribution of iPhone applicationsoutside the App Store, give more freedom and opportunitiesto Safari's competitors, and authorize third-party payment applications to exploit the iPhone's NFC module for contactless payments. These changes are imposed by the DMA, the new EU legislation to regulate tech giants.
And, like Apple, the Meta group is affected by this new legislation. In the messaging sector, for example, it will have to make its WhatsApp and Messenger applications interoperable with competing services. In other words, when this system is implemented, users of these applications will be able to chat with users of competing services (those who are compatible).
Leaks had already shown how WhatsApp intends to comply with the DMA. And today, these changes are confirmed by a Meta official. In an interview with the Wired site, Dick Brouwer, director of engineering at WhatsApp, explains how WhatsApp plans to implement interoperability of its messaging service with third-party applications, to comply with new EU rules.
Detailed information in March
Unfortunately, you will still have to wait before you can communicate with other applications, via WhatsApp. According to the explanations of the head of Meta, detailed information on the interoperability of the application will be published in March. And moreover, in order to be interoperable with WhatsApp and/or Messenger, developers will also have to respect a certain number of rules imposed by Meta.
But the good news is that Mark Zuckerberg's company will be quite flexible. While WhatsApp and Messenger use the Signal protocol to encrypt data, it can support other protocols, provided those protocols have the same level of security. Otherwise, initially, WhatsApp will focus on basic messaging functions. Thus, interoperability with other apps will initially only concern text messages, sending photos and videos, etc. But, later, group messages and calls will also be supported.
WhatsApp also confirms what was already mentioned in the rumors. When it is interoperable with other applications, it will place discussions with these apps in an inbox different from that of WhatsApp messages.
As for Apple, remember that the Cupertino company has already announced support for the RCS protocol on the iPhone. Thus, it will be possible to communicate with iMessage users using Android's default messaging, without using SMS.
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By : Keleops AG
