Republished on June 3 with another new push for users to ditch text messaging.
This is the biggest shake-up to texting and messaging in years. And for Apple and Google, it risks undermining any security and privacy assurances made around RCS. Make no mistake — this could be the best reason yet to stop texting on your phone.
WhatsApp has for some time been working on a username alternative to phone numbers. This is already live on Telegram and Signal, and it’s a game-changer. It means you can give contacts a username that’s unique to the messaging platform without giving away your phone number. It also means you can stop people from finding you by your phone number, preventing spam and scam messages.
WhatsApp is going even further — and it’s a brilliant move. As reported by the beta insiders at WABetaInfo, “WhatsApp plans to introduce an optional PIN code feature linked to usernames, which will be required for others to initiate a new conversation with the user.” This PIN will immediately “reduce unwanted messages.”
Set against the backdrop of surging smishing attacks across the U.S., which has prompted further FBI warnings this weekend, creating a protected messaging enclave in which you control access is exactly what’s needed. The team at Resecurity warns just one threat actor can send “up to 2,000,000 smishing messages daily,” none of which happens on a platform that doesn’t operate unfettered by phone number.
And while there may be verified business contacts operating in a controlled manner, that’s very different to the current free-for-all with Chinese OCGs running riot across SMS and RCS. Yes, advances are being made in filtering spam and scams on-device, but it’s proving too easy for attackers to bombard SMS and RCS networks.
Texting will always have this phone number vulnerability, and RCS which has promised so much is being let down with the increase in spam and marketing. As such, it’s likely that texting will gradually be relegated on phones to an also-ran, as more protected, opt-in messaging platforms filter out all the noise. And no platform has more chance of making this work than WhatsApp, with its 3 billion users.
The big hope for texting has been fully encrypting RCS, which is expected this year. There has been speculation that Apple will provide new news at WWDC. But I would be very surprised to see Apple headline anything on RCS, given that it’s not a core Apple capability on iPhone and runs in parallel to iMessage. Google would have been much more likely to announce updates and changes at I/O.
Make no mistake — 2025 is a huge year for messaging. Scams are spiraling out of control even as Google peddles the growth and benefits of RCS. WhatsApp is running its biggest ever marketing campaign on its privacy merits and has just released an iPad app after a decade of promises. Usernames and PINs dropping soon would be seismic for the sector, giving you the best reason yet to move wholesale from texting.
In the aftermath of WhatsApp’s leaked update, the big news shaking up the messaging world comes not from Meta, Google or Apple — but from Elon Musk’s X. “All new XChat is rolling out with encryption, vanishing messages and the ability to send any kind of file. Also, audio/video calling,” he posted on the platform. “This is built on Rust with (Bitcoin style) encryption, whole new architecture.”
Tagging the new offering’s encryption “Bitcoin-style” generated its own raft of headlines, but from a user perspective what matters is end-to-end encryption in transit and then full endpoint security at rest. X has had more than its fair share of account compromises over the years, and so it will be interesting to see how this holds up.
From an over-the-top messaging versus texting perspective, this is bad news for the forthcoming RCS encryption which will now be launched into a competitive storm. With WhatsApp updates and now X Chat, the landscape is changing rapidly.
With as many as 600 million X users according to reports, this new service could have a ready-made audience that’s much bigger than Signal’s. Messaging platforms drive adoption and new installs through the network effect. Currently “Chat” sits as a beta offering in X’s main menu and hasn’t yet replaced the main messaging service.
While most X profiles identify users, it’s possible to hide behind a username and shield your real identity. There’s also no easy way for users to link another X profile to real-world identifiers such as phone numbers. This matches what’s proposed by WhatsApp and what’s missing in the stock texting applications on both Android and iPhone.
What’s untested but could be very compelling is linking secure messaging to social media, with X users’ posts and profiles offering color and context, plus the option to message people based on their profiles, which is absent in WhatsApp and Signal and clouded in controversy on Telegram.
