WhatsApp update will soon add messages from other apps, but there's a catch

The fallout and long-term impact of the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA) continues to unfold over time, despite the focus on some of the more attention-grabbing outcomes (like Apple being forced to allow new app stores on its iPhones). 

One such change that's coming is big messaging platforms like WhatsApp being forced to allow third-party chat platforms to integrate with them – so users can chat with other people on different platforms without having to constantly swap between apps and services.

Meta said six months ago that it would be integrating third-party chats into both WhatsApp and Messenger as a result of the DMA, but it's taken six months for the latest meaningful update to come. 

It's now published a blog post showing off some of how the change will work, including screenshots showing how users will be greeted by notifications when they open their apps, informing them of integrations that are available, instead of these settings just being buried deep in menus. 

Since not everyone will want to have all their chats merge automatically, Meta also says that in both WhatsApp and Messenger it's building the option for people to choose between merged inboxes or separate ones, depending on their preferences. 

It's also confirmed that it'll make these interoperable chats a little richer and fully-featured than is technically required, by enabling rich messaging features like reactions, replies, typing indicators and read receipts where possible. 

However, while all of this sounds exactly as user-friendly and progressive as the EU was hoping, it comes with a fairly obvious asterisk for anyone not in an EU country – you won't get the features.

As it stands, all of this is coming to the EU only, with no indication from Meta that it intends to roll the settings out more widely unless forced to do so in a jurisdiction. 

So, if you do live in an EU country, you might see these features rolling out in the next year or so – otherwise, you could well be out of luck.