Meta Pays For NYC Billboard Attacking Apple’s iMessage With WhatsApp – CNET [CNET]

Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg unveiled the high profile billboard Monday.

The “anything you can do, I can do better” back and forth between Meta and Apple has made its way to a New York City billboard just outside the famous “crossroads of the world” in Times Square. This time, it’s about Apple’s iMessage.

Facebook co-founder and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a new billboard above Pennsylvania Station, just south of Times Square and near the famous Broadway area theaters, on Monday to attack Apple. This time, his company was taking on the iPhone maker’s popular iMessage texting service, claiming Meta’s WhatsApp was more trustworthy.

“WhatsApp is far more private and secure than iMessage, with end-to-end encryption that works across both iPhones and Android, including group chats,” Zuckerberg wrote in a post on Instagram, the popular photo sharing service his company also owns. He also highlighted other features like disappearing messages, which iMessage doesn’t have.

Read more: Apple Is Living Rent Free In Mark Zuckerberg’s Head

“Protect your personal messages across devices,” the billboard said, while poking fun at Apple’s famous blue-bubble messaging service. Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The move marked the latest in a series of escalating volleys between the tech titans, which has been building for years. Zuckerberg stepped up his attacks last week, during one of his company’s most important events of the year, discussing his plans for the metaverse. The technology, which Zuckerberg is so committed to he renamed his company to Meta from Facebook, refers to shared virtual worlds we interact with using all manner of devices including virtual reality headsets.

Zuckerberg appears convinced that Apple will be one of his largest competitors, which is notable considering the iPhone maker hasn’t yet acknowledged its widely-reported plans to offer a headset that bridges computer-generated virtual reality and the real world.

In the meantime, Meta attacked Apple’s popular iMessage, which is built into iPhones, iPads and Mac computers, but is not available for Android-powered phones and other devices. Google too has begun a campaign against Apple around iMessage, attempting to pressure the tech giant into building support for RCS — or, Rich Communication Standard — which it has been pushing as the next advancement after SMS.

WhatsApp, which is owned by Meta, has for its part already attracted more than 2 billion people who use its service each month.