WhatsApp Director Will Cathcart told the Big Technology Podcast that Apple has a strategic interest in people not using WhatsApp because it doesn’t want people to use Android phones.
In an episode last week, Cathcart spoke to WhatsApp host Alex Kantrowitz about his new privacy changes and the competition with Apple.
Cathcart commented on Apple’s recent new nutritional privacy labels that app developers must now add to their apps to show users how their data is being used. When asked if the new labels were a “direct attack on Facebook,” Cathcart said, “from a WhatsApp perspective, we’ve been critical of the labels.” He said that WhatsApp thinks it is good for people to talk about their data and that WhatsApp itself takes the data it uses very seriously, striving to collect a “minimum” amount of data that it uses. considered it necessary to provide excellent service on a large scale. Noting that the information comes from the developers rather than Apple, Cathcart said:
What I think was unfortunate about Apple’s labels is that the way they designed them ended up being quite confusing. Partly because any application can put whatever it wants for the labels.
Noting how people often compare WhatsApp to Telegram, Cathcart said that Telegram does not have end-to-end encryption by default, nor for groups at all, but that if Telegram has the messages you send, and WhatsApp does not didn’t have your posts at all, there’s no way to tell how you’d know from the new labels. Cathcart also said that whatever the purpose of the labels, WhatsApp competes with Apple in the US and overseas, but no one can see the iMessage label because you don’t download the app. , it is preinstalled on iOS. . It noted Apple’s website listings for privacy regarding its own software, but again pointed out inconsistencies, such as how Apple and WhatsApp can process payments through their platforms, but that WhatsApp lists them. payment information in its label when Apple does not.
You can send money to a friend through iMessage. Our label says we have payment information, not iMessage, what’s the difference?
Kantrowitz noted that Mark Zuckerberg has stated that Apple is Facebook’s biggest competitor in messaging, to which Cathcart said it is “obviously” in Apple’s best interest for everyone to use an iPhone. Noting that in the US most people have iPhones and the messaging experience works best on iMessage “if everyone has an iPhone”, and that on services like WhatsApp it was easier for them. people to switch between iPhone and Android. The cross-compatibility of WhatsApps is one of the reasons that WhatsApp is favored by many people outside of the United States and why it is considered one of the best messaging apps for iPhone.
I am using an Android. When people put me in their iMessage group it breaks a bit, it’s a weird experience.
He continued:
I think it’s definitely in their strategic interest that people don’t use something like WhatsApp because they don’t want people to use an Android phone.
Cathcart also commented on how Apple’s iMessage works on special APIs in a way that other apps don’t, and whether or not they intend to modify them, they affect the whole ecosystem.
Cathcart then discussed privacy, recent changes to WhatsApp’s policy and moderation of content, as well as advertising and new laws in India. You can listen to it in full here.
–
