Apple does not want anyone to use an Android phone, says WhatsApp CEO

Ever since Apple brought about its privacy labels and announced that its App Tracking Transparency framework is going to go live soon, many companies have not been pleased with it. Particularly Facebook, and the Apple versus Facebook battle has been going on for a while now with both CEOs openly criticising each other.

The latest barb from Facebook’s camp against Apple comes from WhatsApp CEO Will Cathcart. Speaking on the ‘Big Technology Podcast’, Cathcart had quite a lot to say about Apple and none of it was good.

Cathcart called Apple’s privacy labels discriminatory and said that Apple was not in favour of people using Android phones.

"I assume it’s in Apple’s interest to have everyone using an iPhone, I mean, obviously, it is. And you look at a place like the US, most people have an iPhone, and the messaging experience works better on iMessage if everyone else has an iPhone," Cathart said.

"It’s certainly in their strategic interest that people not use something like WhatsApp because they want people to not use an Android phone," he added.

Commenting about privacy labels, Cathcart said that regardless of whatever purpose these labels serve, WhatsApp competes with iMessage (Apple’s own messaging app) and in the US more people use iMessage than WhatsApp. “You don’t see a label for iMessage when you download it because you don’t download it, it’s on your phone to begin with. And so, we were critical of that,” Cathcart said.

In fact, Apple had rolled out a special “Labels” page for its own apps that has all the information about what data in-house apps collect. Also, for apps like iMessage that’s already on the phone when you buy it and cannot be removed, Apple has labels for these on the website.

Also Read: Apple launches web page with privacy labels for its own apps

When asked what phone he uses, Cathcart said that he uses an Android phone. "Well, I use an Android because if you look at WhatsApp’s user base, we are very Android heavy. I also use an iPad, I’ve used iPhones for many years, but I really want to actually use the product in the way most people are using it, so I use an Android. A lot of people use both or go back and forth because we’re building our products for both and you got to understand them all,” he explained.

Apple’s privacy labels offer a broad overview of what data apps collect and whether any of it can be used to track you or is tied to your device or your identity. According to these privacy labels, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger collect a lot more data as compared to other top messaging apps. FB Messenger has 65 different privacy labels, including third-party advertising, while WhatsApp has 16.