Meta has announced that it's now possible to add WhatsApp to Accounts Center, the company's hub for managing how user information is used across its platforms.


The integration means that users can now adjust their settings from one place and share their status updates across Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp.

Meta says the option to link WhatsApp to Accounts Center is completely optional and disabled by default, and that WhatsApp messages and calls remain end-to-end encrypted regardless of whether users choose to add the app or not. From the company's news blog:

Our approach for WhatsApp is simple: your account is separate from other apps and no one but you can change that. While adding your WhatsApp to Accounts Center is completely optional and off by default, it can help those who want features to work more seamlessly across apps. For example it’ll be easier to reshare updates from your WhatsApp Status to Facebook or Instagram Stories and show your friends what’s happening in your life without having to post multiple times. You’ll also be able to log back in to your WhatsApp account with a single sign-on, so you can get back into your accounts faster and with fewer steps.

The WhatsApp integration into Accounts Center is being rolled out globally over the next few months. Once available, users will find the option in their WhatsApp settings or when cross-posting content across Meta's platforms, such as re-sharing a Status to one of its other apps.
This article, "You Can Now Share Status Updates Across Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Newly inaugurated US President Donald Trump on Tuesday expressed support for Elon Musk potentially acquiring TikTok, and also proposed a joint ownership structure with the U.S. government.


"I would be, if he wanted to buy it, yes," Trump told reporters at a White House event announcing a new AI infrastructure private sector partnership, where OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son were in attendance. The comments came just days after TikTok briefly went offline in the United States following Supreme Court action.

The social media platform, which boasts 170 million American users, temporarily shut down for about 12 hours on Saturday after the Supreme Court upheld legislation requiring Chinese company ByteDance to divest its US TikTok operations. Trump subsequently issued an executive order providing a 75-day pause on the ban's enforcement.

During the White House event, where Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison was also present, Trump floated the idea of a 50-50 ownership split between any acquiring company and the US government. "They'll have something that's actually more valuable because they have the ultimate partner," Trump explained.

Trump specifically mentioned both Musk and Ellison as potential buyers during the event. Oracle already plays a significant role in TikTok's operations, hosting most of the platform's servers.

Trump originally supported banning the short-form video app over national security concerns, but his thinking has U-turned since winning the US presidential election for a second time. "We won the young vote. I think I won it through TikTok," Trump told reporters. "So I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok."
This article, "Trump Backs Elon Musk as Possible TikTok Buyer, Suggests Government Stake" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Popular caller ID app Truecaller is rolling out an update that brings real-time caller ID support to its iOS subscribers.


Apple introduced Live Caller ID Lookup in iOS 18, allowing third-party caller ID apps to securely retrieve information about a caller from their servers, hence today's Truecaller update.

iPhone users can enable the Live Caller ID Lookup feature by going to Settings ➝ Apps ➝ Phone, and selecting Call Blocking & Identification. Here, users should enable all Truecaller switches and open the Truecaller app again.

Truecaller told TechCrunch it built a new server architecture to enable the new feature, and created a separate, encrypted database for iOS, alongside its existing larger database for Android users:

Apple's Phone app makes encrypted requests to this database and gets encrypted responses that are only decrypted on the client (iPhone) to show the caller ID in real time. This process is called "homomorphic encryption," as the computations use encrypted data instead of decrypting them first, while decryption happens on the client to display caller information if it matches with the data stored on the server.

Truecaller has around 750,000 iPhone-using subscribers out of around 2.6 million subscribers in total, where the majority are Android users. However, 40% of Truecaller’s revenue is from iOS subscriptions, thanks to a 5x conversation rate to its premium tier on iOS compared to Android, and 80% higher revenue from iPhone subscribers.

In addition to the new feature support, Truecaller has updated its interface, with the caller's name appearing in bold over their number. The latest version also includes automatic blocking of spam calls, while other improvements include the ability to search for previously identified calls, going as far back as 2,000 previous numbers in the Recents list in the Phone app.

Prior to iOS 18, Truecaller had to rely on a locally saved dictionary of limited phone numbers on iOS. The Android app has offered real-time caller information for some time, so the latest iOS update is bringing feature parity across platforms. Truecaller says it is now working on support for images to show up in the caller ID for its iOS users.

Truecaller's premium tier for iOS users starts at $9.99 a month per person, or $74.99/year. The company also has a family plan on iOS starting at $14.99/month or $99.99/year and the highest tier Gold subscription at $249 a year.
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Apple is closing in on an investment plan deal with Indonesian authorities that would allow it to resume iPhone 16 sales in the country, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.


Indonesia banned sales of the device in October, claiming Apple had failed to comply with local manufacturing requirements of 35% domestic content for smartphones and tablets. Apple has offered a $1 billion investment in the country that includes building an AirTag factory. The offer is a significant increase from its previous offers of $10 million and $100 million, which were rejected by the government.

“I strongly believe it will resolve very, very soon,” the country's investment minister Rosan Roeslani said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Davos on Tuesday. "Hopefully within one or two weeks this issue can be resolved."

"The way they calculate it is different I think," he said, referring to the local content requirement. "Now they find a solution on that one, so hopefully they accept the discrepancies so we can have the iPhone 16 sold in Indonesia."

Indonesia represents a significant market for Apple, with the country's population of 280 million operating some 354 million active mobile phones. The company has maintained developer academies there since 2018, but the country currently hosts no Apple manufacturing facilities.
This article, "Apple Reportedly Close to a Deal to Lift iPhone 16 Ban in Indonesia" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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