2024 will not only bring us many new devices, but also a permanent change in applications and services due to the new Digital Markets Act, or DMA. This is the same regulation that will force Apple to open the iPhone to download applications outside the App Store or open iMessage to RCS messages with Android.
Also, WhatsApp will experience the biggest change in its history. Very soon we will be able to talk to contacts from any messaging app without leaving WhatsApp, and this is something Meta has been preparing for for years. Now they’ve made it official and explained how it would work.
Talk to Telegram or Line contacts without leaving WhatsApp
The objective of the European Union is to avoid monopolistic practices and to simplify the lives of users. For this reason, and because WhatsApp is one of the most widespread applications in Europe, it was decided that it should be among those open to the rest.
This interoperability will mean that WhatsApp will have to allow communication with other messaging applications, which means it will allow you to send and receive WhatsApp messages with other applications. Obviously, from Telegram, for example, we can also send a message to a WhatsApp contact.
This is something we’ve known about for a long time, but now Dick Brouwer, Director of Engineering at WhatsApp, commented on the feature to Wired. According to him, this interoperability will be “a solution designed from WhatsApp’s current client-server architecture. This means that the approach we are trying to provide is for WhatsApp to document the client-server protocol and, thus, allow third parties to connect directly to our infrastructure.
It is clear that security is a key point in all of this (and one of Apple’s initial reluctance, although it was eventually forced to accept RCS) and Brouwer himself commented that “There is a tension between providing a simple way to offer interoperability while maintaining the privacy, security and integrity of WhatsApp.“.
Ultimately it is a more technical question between the different companies and their protocols, but what matters for us as users is that from March we will be able to talk with contacts from Telegram and other WhatsApp messaging apps.
WABetainfo Screenshots
At first, we can communicate with messages, voice messages, videos, images and send files. Features like calls and group chats will be added later. Now it will be up to users to grant permission to connect to other applications and the big question is… How will we see Telegram chats from WhatsApp?
As they already showed us from WABetainfo some time ago, At the top of the inbox we will have a “Third Party Chats” tab.. This is where the messages we receive and send to external applications will be collected. And yes, what is important is that these changes will only happen, for now, in Europe.
Cover photo | Alexandre Alcolea
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