WhatsApp. Following the Facebook company's F8 conference the other day, there was also a very important announcement regarding the messaging platform, a completely unexpected change being imposed by the Americans for everyone. More precisely, a new SDK was launched for the WhatsApp platform through which application developers can verify registrations or account logins, practically replacing SMS messages.
WhatsApp. The new SDK is available for both iOS and Android, so all users of these platforms will be able to choose to receive registration codes or account logins through the Facebook application instead of SMS. The idea itself is very interesting, and with great potential to reduce the waiting times for a code of this kind, and this is because through WhatsApp they are delivered much faster to users, compared to SMS.
WhatsApp. CAREFUL! MAJOR announcement for Applications
WhatsApp. The 2-step authentication offered by most online services involves receiving codes via SMS for authentication in accounts, and now the messaging platform can replace this whole process to make it faster. The problem in this situation is that users must first have an account in WhatsApp, and then they must always have an active Internet connection, which is not necessary in the case of receiving SMS.
Facebook today released a new SDK that allows mobile app developers to integrate WhatsApp verification into Account Kit for iOS and Android. This will allow developers to build apps where users can opt to receive their verification codes through the WhatsApp app installed on their phone instead of through SMS.
WhatsApp. You can see in the image above what this whole system looks like, users can choose if they want to receive those codes via SMS, or via the Facebook platform, everything being done automatically in just a few seconds. Although these SDKs are offered starting today, it is necessary for the developers to actually implement them in the applications in order to be able to use them, which in the end will take time, so it is not clear when we will be able to benefit from the system in the desired applications.
WhatsApp. Through this platform, Facebook collects data about people and the platforms where they have accounts, so everything is part of a rather complex strategy to better monitor the whole world.