In many ways, Apple is the great, global advocate of privacy and security it claims to be. But there are exceptions, one of which will become a huge issue for the iPhone maker in 2024. Now, a leaked update report has suddenly made this worse. If you have an iPhone, this is an issue that could impact how you use your device.
Apple’s messaging battle with Google is well documented. iMessage has succeeded where Google Messages has failed. Despite the fact that iMessage doesn’t play nicely outside Apple’s ecosystem, it has built a dominant position in the US and established itself as a blue-bubbled social differentiator that transcends its actual function.
But Google has been catching up in recent years—riding the RCS wave to bring some cohesion to stock Android messaging, and now bringing the same default end-to-end encryption to its users that Apple’s have enjoyed for years. iMessage and Google Messages are both now excellent products. It’s just a shame they don’t work together.
Despite Apple’s RCS u-turn last year, despite the Beeper Mini soap opera, and despite regulatory excitement on both sides of the Atlantic, it seems that when Apple brings RCS to iPhone, it will focus on the wrapper and ignore the sweetie. Typing indicators and haptic responses—yes. Cross-platform end-to-end encryption—not so much.
Cue Apple and Google’s messaging nemesis, WhatsApp. This is a platform that has made its name providing cross-platform messaging privacy and security. It dominates outside the US (and China). And despite Meta’s attempts, WhatsApp has successfully resisted harvesting user data to a large enough extent.
WhatsApp gets the global messaging conundrum better than anyone. When RCS hits iPhone with iOS 18, you can expect confusion as to what that really means. Many will assume it brings cross-platform end-to-end security. But it won’t. And WhatsApp will be quick to point that out. Just look at the campaign it waged against Telegram.
And so the latest WhatsApp iOS feature update to leak courtesy of WABetaInfo needs to be seen in this context. Nothing is by accident. WhatsApp introducing a label beneath every WhatsApp contact and group on your iPhone, confirming the end-to-end encryption in place, makes an important point that is about to go big.
As WABetaInfo points out, “this not only provides users with a quick and easy way to identify private conversations, but also educates them about the robust security measures employed by WhatsApp… taking a proactive approach to make it easier for users to understand that the content of their conversations is always private.”
The label below the contact or group name shows for a few seconds before being replaced by the usual “last seen” tag. This cannot be missed, and is in addition to the encryption labels that have already been added to the app, as seen below.
And while there are other updates as well, including bringing Android’s WhatsApp users the text formatting that has already come to iOS, it’s the privacy and security credentials that play most seriously at WhatsApp’s heart.
There’s an important undercurrent here, with end-to-end encryption under threat from well-meaning law enforcement agencies and governments that rue the block on intercepting communications between bad guys. And try as they might to rely on the “who defines the bad guys” defense, that pressure on platforms isn’t going away.
So, when Apple and Google provide their users end-to-end encryption within their walled gardens but not between walled gardens, it sends the wrong message. And while that has industry-wide implications, it also means that both smartphone ecosystems will have failed to present a viable challenge to WhatsApp.
Remember, this isn’t just messaging. This is audio and video calls. This is sharing private videos and photos. This is the quasi mobile communications network connecting two billion people around the world. And in many parts of the world, that reliance on and availability of end-to-end encryption has become a game-changer.
On the surface, this is a trivial update from WhatsApp. Except that it isn’t. Timing is everything, and the coming together of iMessage and Google Messages, especially given Apple’s dominance in the US and Android’s elsewhere, is a threat. WhatsApp has shown before then when it comes under pressure, it returns to basics and hammers home its privacy message. We’re seeing the start of that now.
Apple and Google’s opportunity to create a WhatsApp alternative requires them to share an encryption protocol and underpin cross-platform integrity across different clients. There’s no scale precedent for that yet in messaging. This isn’t easy, but it’s doable and would be a huge step forwards for users, especially in the US.
All told, 2024 promises the biggest shake-up to the global messaging landscape in years. The challenge for Apple is that its walled garden is being scrutinized after the Beeper Mini fiasco, just as it opens the door a little into its iMessage world with RCS. Thanks to WhatsApp, it will be very clear what that means and what it doesn’t.
