Facebook explained during the F8 conference how the new WhatsApp works: here’s how it will be and what’s new for users
Interchangeable. And secure. These will be the two watchwords that will guide the developers of Facebook in the project to improve the messaging app and social group. A work that started a few months ago and will continue for at least a couple of years. The goal is to arrive at a unique environment in which a user can write a private message on Instagram and send it to the WhatsApp account of his friend.
To explain the operation of the new WhatsApp and social apps is the same company of Menlo Park that in these days is holding the F8 conference, an event dedicated to developers in which Facebook explains the future strategies of the company. And Mark Zuckerberg has put at the center of the development of Facebook the harmonization of communication channels. That is, the ability to send messages from Instagram and receive them on Facebook Messenger, or the opposite. And even WhatsApp will be part of this project that will revolutionize the use of messaging applications owned by Facebook. Here’s how the new WhatsApp will look like.
How WhatsApp will change
WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Instagram Direct. They will be the three applications involved in the harmonization project initiated by the Menlo Park company. As announced by Mark Zuckerberg the first tests have already begun (and a test is the down of WhatsApp and Instagram in March, caused precisely by the tests carried out by developers) and in the coming months will be released the first features. It will be a very long process and several years will pass before we see it completed.
One of Facebook’s goals is not to force users to use a specific app to talk to their friends. With competition getting tighter and tighter (Telegram is gaining more and more users every day, while in Southeast Asia it has to fight with the overwhelming power of WeChat), Facebook wants to give more freedom to its users. And for this reason, the three applications will have to provide the same functionality. The stickers present on WhatsApp will have to have them also on Instagram, as well as the filters of Instagram on WhatsApp. The harmonization process is not so simple and immediate and for this reason it will take several months/years.
Instagram and Facebook Messenger, end-to-end encryption arrives
At the moment, Instagram and Facebook Messenger do not use the same encryption system present on WhatsApp. In the coming months, these two apps will also use end-to-end encryption to protect chats in order to be aligned with WhatsApp. This step is also crucial to complete the harmonization project. In a few months when you receive a message from a friend, you’ll be able to reply to it on any of the Menlo Park company’s three applications without any kind of problem.