In an advertisement that intensifies the business rivalries between the two prominent Silicon Valley tech companies, Meta has taken an aim at Apple’s iMessage.On Monday Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta shared a photo of an advertisement in New York’s Penn Station suggesting that WhatsApp from Meta is more private and secure than Apple’s iMessage and conventional text messages.
A billboard comparing WhatsApp’s “Private” bubble to the Green and Blue bubbles of Apple’s iMessage may be seen in the Meta CEO’s shared Instagram photo. Apple has consistently emphasized the privacy and safety of iMessage.
The blue and green bubbles in iMessage serve to distinguish between messages sent from an iPhone and those sent from an Android device. The blue bubble confirms that the recipient has an Apple device whereas the green bubble indicates that the receiver uses an Android device.
Zuckerberg made a post on Instagram stating, “WhatsApp is far more private and secure than iMessage, with end-to-end encryption that works across both iPhones and Android, including group chats. With WhatsApp, you can also set all new chats to disappear with the tap of a button. And last year we introduced end-to-end encrypted backups too. All of which iMessage still doesn’t have.”
End-to-end encryption refers to the design of the messaging system, which prevents the service provider from viewing the contents of the texts or providing them in compliance with a legal order. iMessage and WhatsApp are both encrypted.
On either service, however, messages and backups might be kept in a fashion that allows the company to access them. Wireless cellular carriers preserve SMS communications.
There are several factors for Meta to criticize Apple in this situation. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and other social media businesses’ advertising has suffered since Apple’s ‘App Tracking Transparency’ tool was made available in April 2021.
By using this option, social media companies are prevented from tracking a user’s data on other websites or apps. According to one report, this Apple feature would cost Facebook nearly $22 billion alone in 2022. This feature debuted with iOS 14.5.
The Meta ad follows a previous effort by Google in which it attacked the blue bubbles used by iMessage. Google wants Apple to use Rich Communication Services(RCS), a newer text messaging technology that replaces SMS communications with enhanced capabilities and encryption.
Apple’s CEO Tim Cook advised users to just purchase one iPhone for each person they wish to interact with, indicating that the company currently has no intentions to do this. However, if WhatsApp becomes a serious competition in the US, it’s absolutely feasible that its stance may change.
Over 2 billion people use WhatsApp worldwide. In the US, it isn’t the default texting app. Meta seeks to increase WhatsApp’s US user base. Recently, Meta has promoted WhatsApp focusing on security and privacy.
Not just Meta, but other tech firms have criticized iMessage from Apple. A valid criticism of Apple’s privacy-focused iPhone advertising is the reality that iMessage still relies on SMS and cannot be used to safely contact people who use Android phones.
In the meantime, a recent update to WhatsApp, which is owned by Meta, allowed certain beta testers to create groups with up to 1,024 members.
I am a law graduate from NLU Lucknow. I have a flair for creative writing and hence in my free time work as a freelance content writer.