New WhatsApp update should prevent you from using RCS on your iPhone

Once the dust settles on iPhone 16 and iOS 18, and the disappointment of how much (or how little) Apple Intelligence actually packs into the first version, the biggest achievement will likely be RCS. But before you start fiddling with the messaging settings on your iPhone, WhatsApp might just have a new update that will stop you in your tracks.

iMessage has long been the great irony of the iPhone. Brilliantly secure messaging—but only if you limit your messaging to other iPhone users. Apple’s ever-reliable, privacy-first marketing—but only if you limit your messaging to other iPhone users. The option to easily share content with friends and family—but only if you limit your messaging to other iPhone users. You get the message, literally.

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There has never been a good, secure messenger that works on both iPhone and Android, which is why WhatsApp in particular, but also Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Signal and others have filled the gap. All that is about to change.

Apple’s U-turn on RCS came as a shock, given its stubborn reluctance to adopt the SMS successor technology. Google campaigned for the move, the Justice Department challenged Apple’s resistance, and WhatsApp happily filled the void by rolling out its cross-platform app without the blue bubbles to 3 billion devices.

RCS should change all that. So Google released a cheeky ad “finally” welcoming Apple to RCS, with “an end to the blur between Androids and iPhones” and “an end to broken group chats,” though the ad came awkwardly right after Apple’s ad bashing Chrome and promoting Safari for privacy reasons.

The original RCS marriage between Androids and iPhones has a glaring flaw — security. The end-to-end encryption that protects iMessage chats in Apple’s walled garden and Google Messages chats in its own walled garden doesn’t extend between the two walled gardens. In short.

It’s no wonder WhatsApp has been pushing hard on its own cross-platform security to ensure it hits the mark, although the RCS encryption issue will eventually be resolved given Apple and Google’s commitment to this level of security. But WhatsApp has a better trick up its sleeve that RCS shouldn’t be able to match.

ESET warns: “Your phone number is more than just a way to contact you – scammers can use it to send you malicious messages, or even access your bank account or steal company data… your phone number can be a gateway for threat actors and lead to large-scale business compromise and millions in losses. It should be kept as private as possible – just like any other unique identifier.”

But with messaging, phone numbers have become unprotectable. You need a number not only to set up and verify your account, but also to allow others to send you messages. And your number remains visible and searchable.

That’s all changing now, and it’s set to be the biggest update to messaging security since end-to-end encryption. It’s long overdue and its importance cannot be overstated.

Telegram offers usernames so that people can contact you without giving them your number, and your number will never be visible to them; that said, Telegram has its own various security issues. But Signal is the benchmark for secure messaging, WhatsApp, Google, and others use its encryption protocol for their own security, and now it also offers usernames instead of phone numbers.

This is a powerful new way to protect your privacy. Phone numbers can be hidden from view, and you can share links and QR codes using just your username, preserving your privacy off-platform. Make sure each username is unique to that particular platform so it doesn’t become another way to track you.

Now, after much speculation, it seems certain that WhatsApp is preparing to do the same, and will even introduce PIN protection for those usernames. This will all first appear on its web service and for beta users of the app, but it will roll out later. And it will catch on. It curbs the nervousness of sharing your contact details with strangers, and it stops those strangers — especially corporations — from selling your number to annoying cold calls.

This could become a new dividing line between RCS and WhatsApp, as RCS cannot be used without a phone number, and it would require tight account-level integration between Google Messages and Apple iMessage that is simply not foreseeable.

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I’m sure that as WhatsApp scales this privacy innovation the way it has for others—encryption, disappearing messages, chat locks—it will quickly become the norm to refrain from sharing your phone number outside of your social circle. Remember, your number is a unique identifier that protects your account, and not having to share it with everyone you touch is a huge security boost.

The competition between WhatsApp and RCS will only heat up once iOS 18 is released. But the truth is that for now, WhatsApp still has the upper hand.