A new report today from The Information details a change coming with iOS 13 that will force WhatsApp and others to redesign their messaging apps. The small but notable change has to do with how third-party apps use iOS to make internet voice calls with the PushKit VoIP API and also run in the background which will be restricted come this fall.
Apple has been under pressure in recent months to restrict what access third-party apps can have to a user’s iPhone and data. This latest move by Apple to increase user privacy and security detailed by The Information highlights that the change will restrict apps like Facebook and WhatsApp from being able to run the internet call API in the background.
Sources for The Information said that WhatsApp has been using the PushKit VoIP API to handle its end-to-end encryption so it may have the most work to do ahead of iOS 13 launching with the new restriction. Other apps that have been using the internet calling feature may have to redesign their apps as well.
Apple didn’t comment on the matter, but Facebook told The Information that the change wasn’t a big deal and that it wasn’t collecting data while the API runs in the background.
However, Apple’s former App Store review chief, Phillip Shoemaker, shared concerns about how Facebook could have been or still is using the background app access.
Shoemaker also noted that Facebook tried to keep the PushKit API in its main app when the company split off Messenger as a standalone app in 2014. When Apple caught on, it made Facebook remove the API.
Read the full report from The Information here.
