Following the recent challenge posed to WhatsApp by it much smaller rival, Signal, the globally acclaimed messaging App, used by over two billion people, has announced a sudden and surprising update soon to go live that will address some of WhatsApp’s most critical missing functionality.
The battle between competing messengers is heating up fast. WhatsApp prides itself on its balance of security and functionality, and on keeping Facebook’s marketing and data monetization hounds at bay. Yes, it’s quite clear that WhatsApp has a treasure trove of metadata to mine, but our messaging feeds are not yet littered with ads and our content remains locked away from prying eyes.
While the main threat to WhatsApp clearly comes from Apple’s iMessage and (possibly) the Google-driven rollout of SMS-successor RCS, in reality it is way ahead of the field in both usage and userbase. But in recent months the soaring growth of its much smaller rival Signal has been a cause for concern. Signal offers genuine multi-platform access, a secure way to transfer chat histories to new devices and, most recently, desktop voice and video calling to address our increasing need for secure, home-based video calling.
None of that has yet made it into the WhatsApp mix. But in a sign of the times, where we have seen increasing convergence between our smartphone and desktop apps, it now seems that WhatsApp is rushing out its own desktop calling option.
Signal launched its version just a few weeks ago, making a play for the secure side of the burgeoning video conference market, and WhatsApp has recognized that it needs to do so too.
WhatsApp’s proposed desktop calling functionality has been talked about for years, the timing here is an interesting coincidence.
WhatsApp already has access to Facebook’s multi-platform Messenger Rooms, which can now be triggered from within WhatsApp itself and which form part of Facebook’s masterplan to combine its various messaging platform into an integrated giant. But these Rooms are not end-to-end encrypted, and, much like their Facebook Messenger host, they’re best avoided for anything private or sensitive. WhatsApp needs to do better.
As ever with WhatsApp, the news has been broken by WABetaInfo following its examination of the code within the latest web desktop client beta. “Today we are happy to announce new details,” it posted on October 19. “WhatsApp is considering the idea to offer Voice and Video Calls in the next few weeks, even if the development is in a beta-stage.”
The screenshots shared by WABetaInfo show video and voice call icons at the top of the web/desktop client, with separate popups for an incoming call and in-call status. WABetaInfo says that “support for Group Voice and Video calls is included as well,” which is a real differentiator from Signal’s offering which remains person-to-person only at this stage.
WhatsApp group calls—voice and video—are fully end-to-end encrypted and currently allow up to eight parties in a call. One can assume the web/desktop client will do the same. Absent an actual desktop app or a switch to multiple endpoint encryption, this will be a link to a call coming into the user’s phone that can then be taken on the desktop. Much like using your desktop or laptop for incoming calls from your smartphone.
This is not the same as a genuinely independent endpoint, but it goes a long way to plugging the gap. When working at a desktop, it is frustrating for users to have to turn to their smartphones to make a video call.
This is a critical move for WhatsApp given that the web/desktop client is currently a far cry from a genuine app—it is a scrape of a user’s smartphone, which needs to be switched on and connected for it to work. The real challenge WhatsApp needs to resolve is multi-device end-to-end encrypted messages, which would enable a genuine desktop (as well as tablet) app and which would match the functionality already offered by iMessage and Signal.
Because iMessage offers this end-to-end encrypted multiple device access, users upgrading to the new iPhone 12 can do so securely, uploading their message histories in the process. WhatsApp’s recommended approach is to use an iCloud backup that falls outside its end-to-end encrypted protection and so raises a serious security concern for users.
iMessage has essentially cracked the conundrum that WhatsApp seems to be struggling with, sharing encryption keys between a user’s trusted devices. This not only enables independent multiple device access, it also provides a live backup of messages, meaning that an actual once-a-day backup file is not required. Apple has delivered this while maintaining the end-to-end encryption to which even the platform doesn’t hold a key.
As has been said before, despite the surge in installs for the much smaller Signal and the recent enhancements to the Apple-only iMessage, the secure messaging space remains WhatsApp’s for the taking. But it needs to act fast and deploy these much talked about functionality improvements. And so this can be applauded as a major step forward—even though it’s a halfway house solution, noting that it has been rushed out not long after Signal’s alternative went live.
