Big tech companies will have to change many of their services to comply with the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) antitrust legislation. You’re probably already aware of the changes coming to the App Store. The DMA will also affect messaging apps. Meta, which owns WhatsApp, has already begun working on making WhatsApp compatible with third-party chats.
The latest version of WhatsApp for iPhone includes a new section for “third-party chats.” This hidden section will let users communicate with their contacts on other messaging apps like Telegram and Discord. The DMA wants the major messaging platforms to talk to each other. That way, you won’t need a different app just to chat with friends who use something else. It’s not clear exactly how platforms will do this yet. But WhatsApp is getting ready to make it happen starting now.
Many wonder if the DMA will also affect iMessage, Apple’s messaging app. Last year, regulators started looking into if Apple should also allow third-party chats. Apple argued that iMessage isn’t very popular in Europe. Regulators agreed with this point for now. But they will make a final decision next month. If Apple loses, it would have no choice but to let iMessage work with other apps.
Apple did say last year it will soon update iPhone to support RCS. This is the new standard for messaging that works better than SMS. RCS will make chatting between iPhones and Android phones much smoother. Supporting RCS may be enough for Apple to avoid the antitrust changes for iMessage in Europe. Only time will tell what happens with these popular messaging platforms going forward!
