Open Whisper System's Signal app for encrypted calls gets encrypted texting in version 2.0 for iOS
Kashmir Hill / Fusion :
Context & Ripple Effects
Open Whisper Systems has spent years splitting encrypted communication across separate apps: RedPhone handled calls, TextSecure handled texts. Version 2.0 folds encrypted texting into the Signal app on iOS, creating a single end-to-end-encrypted destination — and prefiguring what came next, when the company released Signal for Android to replace TextSecure and RedPhone outright that November.
The move matters because Signal is small but structurally important: as a later profile noted, the five-person outfit also develops the encryption protocol used by Facebook and other major messengers, so every feature it standardizes tends to propagate well beyond its own user base.
First-order effects
- iOS users can now do encrypted calls and encrypted texts in one Signal app instead of juggling two Open Whisper Systems products, consolidating the company's iOS presence under a single brand.
- Open Whisper Systems sets the unification template it then applies platform-wide, retiring its split-app structure on Android months later.
Second-order effects
- Mainstream messengers face growing pressure to match full-service encrypted messaging — pressure that already shows up as adoption of Open Whisper Systems' protocol by Facebook and others rather than building their own.
- Rival secure-messaging tools must compete on breadth (texting plus calling) rather than on encryption alone, which stops being a differentiator once a free five-person project offers both.
Third-order effects
- If the consolidation-plus-licensing pattern holds, industry structure splits into a few huge messengers running a common open encryption core and one tiny nonprofit stewarding it — a dynamic visible again when Signal expanded further into beta video calling despite new privacy tradeoffs.
- Feature growth forces recurring design tradeoffs around metadata and server trust, foreshadowing later work such as testing contact scanning that provably deletes data from servers.
The trend: Encrypted messaging is consolidating from fragmented single-purpose tools into full-featured mainstream messengers, with a shared open protocol spreading faster than any one app's user base.