WhatsApp is on a mission to round out its functionality, with a succession of updates to the world’s leading messaging platform either released or in the works. And while some of these are fairly trivial—improved searches, storage management and dark mode, others are more important.
WhatsApp is on a mission to round out its functionality, with a succession of updates to the world’s leading messaging platform either released or in the works. And while some of these are fairly trivial—improved searches, storage management and dark mode, others are more important. The ones that stand out are end-to-end encrypting cloud backups and the long awaited launch of its user-to-user payments platform.
All of these feature enhancements impact the core messaging platform we use today—the apps that some 2 billion of us have installed on our iPhones and Android devices. But WhatsApp is about to step up its game outside the smartphone arena, where it is now playing catch-up with the likes of iMessage and Signal. And for millions of us, this will be an absolute game-changer in how we use the platform.
One of these is multi-device access. As I reported earlier this month, a WhatsApp update that enables users to link multiple devices to a single account is now in test. This will match what we can now do so brilliantly on the encrypted messaging front with iMessage and Signal. The latest information suggests up to four devices can be linked, and that some form of synchronized message history will be included.
But WhatsApp, backed by the hungry aspirations of parent Facebook, wants to go further. More than any other messaging platform, WhatsApp has become a trusted communications tool for business leadership, project teams, even politicians. When you read about back-channel sources and leadership coups, the chances are there’s a WhatsApp group lurking somewhere behind the scenes.
And it’s this fact, that WhatsApp has morphed from an improvement on SMS to a secure, trusted alternative to more general messaging for many users, that has put the platform in an interesting position. Many of us have its desktop app open as we work—even though it’s nothing more than a window onto the messages on our phone. Well, that looks set to change in a move that could make WhatsApp a very interesting alternative to the latest must-have desktop apps—video conferencing.
As reported by the always reliable WABetaInfo, WhatsApp plans to upgrade its desktop apps—whether in their current form or once the newly linked multi-device access is available—with voice and video calls, including all-important group calls. The current limit for WhatsApp group video calls is eight parties—it is inevitable that this will increase. And all of those calls, voice and video, are end-to-end encrypted.
There is, of course, a caveat. No-one is suggesting that WhatsApp is going to replace Zoom or Teams in the corporate video conferencing world. But most calls involve relatively few people, and when it comes to project collaboration, management catch-ups, family chats and socially distanced quiz nights, WhatsApp groups arrange the time for a call and then users jump onto Zoom—maybe not for much longer.
Behind the scenes, Facebook has launched Messenger Rooms, its competitive alternative to Zoom and Google Meet, and WhatApp users can link to and open Rooms from within their chats. Those calls not end-to-end encrypted, for now, albeit Facebook says it plans to change that. The challenge, Facebook acknowledges, is providing end-to-end encryption for large numbers of callers. But WhatsApp calls are smaller and fully encrypted—Facebook does not hold the keys to intercept them.
When it comes to secure messaging and calling, WhatsApp has a huge advantage over the likes of Zoom, Google Meet and Teams. It is fully integrated into our phones and contacts. We run our lives within its groups. And if all that can be seamlessly transferred to our desktops and tablets, where we can click a single button and join a group video call that we know is secure, that is a tantalizing prospect.
I run a company that operates in multiple countries across three continents, where security and trust in national telecoms carriers is mixed. Most of the voice calls across the management of the company now take place over WhatsApp. Management teams use WhatsApp to drive decisions more than they use email. But video calls take place on desktops using Zoom or Teams. This is fast becoming the norm for many organizations. A desktop extension of our WhatsApp ecosystem, one that has evolved over many years, would be exceptionally compelling.
And so, just as with multi-device access, all eyes are now on WhatsApp to see how flawlessly it can execute. The user experience will be everything in making this work. And you get the sense that those behind the scenes in Menlo Park understand that. If desktop calling is done well, if it quickly becomes as usable as the smartphone app, then it will raise a very serious question for others around convergence of group messaging and calls. And that would be a genuine game changer.