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WhatsApp comes to millions of basic cellphones running KaiOS
WhatsApp has only had limited availability on basic cellphones until now, but Facebook is about to throw the gates wide open. The messaging app is now available on the KaiStore, making it available to "millions" of low-cost KaiOS cellphones with at least 256MB of RAM. "Most" KaiOS phones will come preloaded with WhatsApp in the third quarter of the year, and that's no small number when over 100 million of the phones have shipped to date.
Google takes control of bringing next-gen texting to Android
Google's rollout of RCS chat to Android devices has been slow, and you can blame that partly on the carriers. As the next-gen texting format usually depends on networks adding support one at a time, compatibility has been patchy at best. Now, though, Google is ready to take matters into its own hands -- the internet giant will offer RCS services to Android users in the UK and France later in June, giving them an opt-in choice through the platform's Messages app. The company's Drew Rowny explained it to The Verge as a sort of peer-to-peer end run around the carrier-driven model.
TikTok's owner launches chat app with a focus on communities
TikTok's owner, ByteDance, has jumped into the wide world of messaging apps. The company has released Flipchat (aka Feiliao), an "interest-based social app" for Android and iOS that combines the usual chats and video calls with a social network-style feed, chat groups and forums. While you can communicate like you would in other chat apps, the emphasis here is on participating in a community. If you're a fan of a movie, you can discuss it in a myriad of ways.
France launches government chat app after fixing last-minute flaw
France made good on its promise to launch a secure government-only chat app -- although it almost didn't turn out that way. The country has introduced a beta version of Tchap, a messaging app that helps officials communicate with each other through Android, iOS and the web with reportedly greater security than they'd have with off-the-shelf apps. All private conversations are encrypted end-to-end, antivirus software screens all attachments and all data is stored in France. You only need a French government email address to sign up, though, and that's where the security issue resided.
WhatsApp wants your help with a fake news study in India (updated)
India's elections begin April 11th, and WhatsApp is determined to use every method it can to fight fake news ahead of the voting. The Facebook-owned company has teamed up with Proto to launch a fact-checking project, Checkpoint Tipline, that verifies messages. Relay a message and Proto will determine whether it's real, bogus, misleading or contested. The team can handle images and video, and it supports four regional languages as well as English.
Telegram users can delete any message in their private chat history
Telegram's ability to unsend messages is no longer a novelty among chat apps, but it's now taking that feature well beyond what you'd get from others. An update to the service lets you delete any message in your private chat history, whether you're the sender or the recipient. You can even wipe out an entire conversation (on both sides or just your own) with two taps. It's an audacious step, but one the company feels is necessary in the modern climate.
WhatsApp test highlights frequently forwarded messages to curb fake news
WhatsApp is experimenting with yet more tools to help fight the spread of fake news. A new beta for Android labels messages you send as "frequently forwarded" if they've been shared five or more times. You can even see the exact forwarding count by diving into the Message Info section. It's limited to messages you send rather than ones you receive, but it could give you second thoughts about sharing a sensationalist piece more than once.
Facebook Messenger gets threaded replies
Facebook is making it a bit easier to keep track of who's talking to who in a busy group chat. It's rolling out a thread feature for Messenger that lets you reply to specific messages (including media and emoji). If you ask an important question, you won't have to scroll through chat to see if someone answered it. You only have to long-press on a message to start a response.
WhatsApp deletes 2 million accounts per month to curb fake news
WhatsApp is trying a number of measures to fight its fake news problem, including study grants, a grievance officer and labels on forwarded messages. However, it's also relying on a comparatively old-fashioned approach: outright deleting accounts. The messaging service has revealed in a white paper that it's deleting 2 million accounts per month. And in many cases, users don't need to complain.
Detainee wins major literary prize for book written through WhatsApp
Messaging apps aren't just useful for everyday communication -- in at least one case, they've enabled an influential book. Kurdish-Iranian author Behrouz Boochani has won Australia's top literary award, the Victorian Prize for Literature, with a book (No Friend But the Mountains) he wrote using WhatsApp. He'd used the unconventional approach to ensure his message would get through. As an inmate of Australia's controversial Manus Island detention center, he was concerned guards would seize his phone and confiscate his work -- he messaged his translator, Omid Trofighian, over the course of five years to ensure his story would get out.
WhatsApp limits forwarding worldwide to fight hoaxes and rumors
WhatsApp limited forwarding in India as part of an effort to curb hoaxes and rumors that could lead to violence, and now that policy is spreading. The Facebook-owned messaging service has announced that it's lowering the forwarding limit worldwide from 20 people or groups to the same five Indian users have dealt with since July. The update applying the limit will start to roll out on January 21st, starting with Android users and reaching iOS later.
Google Fi adds support for next-gen RCS text messaging
Google is putting its money where its mouth is when coming to support for next-gen texting. It's starting off 2019 by introducing RCS chat to Google Fi. So long as you have a supporting Fi-friendly Android phone (more on that in a bit), you can share higher-quality media, message over WiFi, see who's typing and get message receipts. It'll be automatically enabled if you have a "designed for Fi" phone, and will kick in if you set Google's official Messages app as your default.
China's WeChat is mimicking Snapchat Stories, too
Snap just can't catch a break from companies imitating its signature Stories feature in their apps. WeChat, the Chinese social app giant, has introduced a Time Capsule feature whose disappearing videos will seem uncannily familiar if you've used Snapchat... or Instagram, for that matter. You can't find them in a dedicated section, but the basic concept remains: you can record a short (15-second) clip that your friends and group chat participants can watch within 24 hours.
Facebook Messenger's camera fakes portrait mode photos
Facebook Messenger's camera just caught up to Instagram's in a few key areas, and then some. To start, you can snap software-based portrait mode photos -- if you don't have a dual-camera phone (or one with clever AI photography), you can still get that blurred background for your headshots. You can also shoot animated Boomerang loops if you want to capture a brief bit of movement without recording a whole video.
Google may shut down its Allo messaging app 'soon'
The 'classic' version of Hangouts might not be the only Google chat service on the chopping block. A source talking to 9to5Google claims the company will shut down Allo "soon." While the apparent insider didn't explicitly say why it would switch off the messaging service, it's most likely due to both shifting priorities at the company and a general lack of interest.
Verizon will deliver RCS chat to the Pixel 3 on December 6th
Verizon has confirmed that multimedia-rich RCS chat is coming to Google's Pixel 3 devices tomorrow on December 6th, according to Droid Life and other sites. You might be more familiar with it as "Chat," the snappier name Google uses for its upcoming RCS SMS service (built into its Message app) that aims to compete with Apple's iMessage. The news that Chat will arrive soon to Verizon first leaked onto Reddit via an internal employee document.
Rumor claims Google Hangouts will shut down in 2020 (updated)
Stop us if you've heard this one before: there's a report that Google is considering either launching or shutting down a messaging app. 9to5Google said that based on a "source familiar with the product's internal roadmap," Google Hangouts as a consumer product will come to an end in 2020. Whether or not that holds up remains to be seen, and Google isn't officially saying anything about the app's future, but the writing has been on the wall since... forever?
Facebook starts rolling out Messenger's 'unsend' feature
Facebook didn't take long to roll out Messenger's unsend feature, although it may be a while before you have the option of correcting missteps in your part of the world. Unsending is now available in Messenger's Android and iOS apps in Bolivia, Colombia, Lithuania and Poland, with promises it will be available in other countries as soon as it's possible. The functionality is the same wherever you go, at least. You'll have up to 10 minutes to retract a message, with a marker telling others where the ex-message was. Facebook will keep unsent messages for a short amount of time in order to prevent harassers from using the option to cover their tracks.
WhatsApp fixes video call exploit that allowed account hijacks
WhatsApp owners may have just dodged a bullet. The messaging service has fixed a security flaw that let intruders hijack the app (and thus your account) when you answered an incoming video call in Android or iOS. If an attacker sent a malformed Real-time Transport Protocol packet, it would corrupt the app's heap memory and open it to attack. Web users weren't affected, since the browser-based client relies on the WebRTC protocol.
Skype drops Snapchat-like feature since people weren't using it
Microsoft's about-face on Skype now extends to one of its not-so-subtle attempts to ride the social media bandwagon. As part of a broader app update, Microsoft has revealed that it's axing its Snapchat-like Highlights feature for mobile users in a bid to focus on core features like calls and chats. Simply put, people weren't using it -- the Stories-style posts "didn't resonate with a majority of users," the Skype team said. You'll have until September 30th to download your own Highlights if you want to preserve them for posterity.
