Jon Porter

Here’s the Wall Street Journal with a look at how Apple could maintain “close oversight” of iOS sideloading in the EU after the Digital Markets Act’s March deadline:

WABetaInfo has spotted an in-development “Third-party Chats” feature in the latest beta version of WhatsApp’s iOS app, mirroring a similar feature found in the Android version last September. It’s all thanks to the EU’s Digital Markets Act, which will require dominant messaging apps in Europe like WhatsApp (but probably not iMessage) to offer interoperability with other services when it goes into force in March.

In case Apple’s new security features weren’t reason enough to update to iOS 17.3 and iPadOS 17.3, Apple has also confirmed that it addresses a WebKit vulnerability that “may have been exploited” in the wild, alongside other security updates. Its macOS 14.3 and tvOS 17.3 updates include a similar fix, and there are also fixes for devices stuck on older versions of macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. Get updating!

9to5Google has spotted references to a new “Seamless voice typing” feature in the code of a beta version of Gboard. When enabled, “voice typing will start automatically when keyboard is shown,” apparently.

iOS has AirDrop, Android has Nearby/Quick Share, and soon it looks like WhatsApp might offer an alternative. Its unreleased file-sharing feature was spotted by WABetaInfo in a beta release of WhatsApp’s Android app, and says file transfers are end-to-end encrypted. There’s no word on when it’ll release, but as readers have pointed out it has the potential to bring cross platform sharing to about 2 billion WhatsApp users worldwide.

91Mobiles has a render of what might just be the first smartphone from HMD Global to be branded as an HMD, rather than a Nokia, device. HMD Global CEO Jean-Francois Baril announced the new initiative last year, adding that the company plans to continue releasing Nokia phones alongside its HMD-branded devices.