WhatsApp has been preparing for a small revolution in the world of messaging applications since 2022. That year, the European Union shook up the industry in a big way by imposing interoperability on the largest players through the Digital Market Act. In other words, WhatsApp, iMessage, and other messaging services described as “gatekeepers” will eventually have to allow their users to send messages between apps.
Since then WhatsApp has had to work on the issue. In September 2023, Android smartphones became the first smartphones to qualify for a new section titled “third-party conversations” in the conversations tab. This, as the name suggests, brings together all messages received from messengers other than WhatsApp. As WABetaInfo reports, it’s now iPhones’ turn to get this new chapter in the app’s latest beta 24.2.10.72.
WhatsApp tests message interoperability on iPhone
In fact, it is just a matter of deploying on the iPhone the functionality that was tested on Android last school year. So nothing new, other than confirmation that WhatsApp continues to work on messaging interoperability. The firm essentially has no choice: being considered a gatekeeper, it will sooner or later have to comply with the new DMA restrictions.
Note that upon request of the European Union, this function can be enabled or disabled by the user as desired. However, it is difficult to imagine a situation where the latter would want to do without this functionality, which allows the bulk of their conversations to be grouped into a single application. Additionally, end-to-end encryption will need to be maintained on these calls, so the feature takes time to arrive.
Source : WABetaInfo
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