EU legislation could mean a messaging upgrade for everyone – and I'm excited

In case you've been living under a rock for a few years, things are changing in technology. Specifically, new legislation is coming in which could re-shape the way the best phones operate in coming years.

The saga has been most publicised with changes to the iPhone. Apple have engaged in an ongoing series of battles with the EU, over their proposed changes to rules around technological devices. That spurred on the switch to USB-C, which is expected on the iPhone 15 range later this year.

While the changes cover a wide variety of things, one recently caught my eye. In a section about messaging standards on devices, the EU report states, "The gatekeeper concerned should be required to publish a reference offer laying down the technical details and general terms and conditions of interoperability with its number-independent interpersonal communications services."

Translated from legalese into good ol' plain English, that basically means that platforms which offer messaging services should be able to interact with one another. It seems clear that this is in response to Apple's reluctance to use the RCS messaging standard, which has become commonplace on Android phones.

But it could also go further. That would also suggest that different messaging platforms should be able to interact with one another, regardless of what your message recipient is using. For example, if I'm messaging you on Telegram but you prefer to use WhatsApp, we should be able to do that.

That could be a massive change. Currently, when a new platform launches, the early days follow a similar pattern. Interested parties flock to it, but quickly become disenchanted when the people they want to message aren't there. I've personally done this with Telegram – I love the concept, and have downloaded it, but no-one I regularly message is on there.

In fact, even those who are on there have been found from other platforms. And honestly, if I already chat to them somewhere else, it seems pointless to change tact unnecessarily.

This change would stop that altogether. I could use Telegram – or another app of my choice – and message people using their platform of choice. In theory, the whole thing would work just as well as if we were both using the same app.

Don't expect the change to happen overnight, though. The legislation does contain something of a get out clause, where security concerns can be used as an argument against the implementation. Expect this to play out for a while, then.