Nothing announces Nothing Chats app with iMessage compatibility

Nothing Tech has announced a new app called Nothing Chats. This will allow Nothing Phone users to chat with their iMessage friends.

The Green Bubble vs Blue Bubble debate has been going on for a long time. It has become annoying, with no proper solution from Apple. In case you are not aware of it, when an Android user sends a text message to their friend who is on iOS, their chats are displayed in a Green Bubble instead of a Blue Bubble. It's not just that, Apple has other limitations in place. Android users cannot share full resolution media with their iOS friends s it is limited to the file size limits of MMS. And since the texting relies on the outdated SMS technology for communication, you cannot even participate in group chats.

Google has been mocking Apple for a long while about not switching to the RCS protocol. RCS supports all modern features from typing indicators, read receipts, high-res media sharing, end-to-end encryption and more. Apple however has ignored the idea, as it has integrated the iMessage platform with several of its services, and sees no value in opening up its doors to RCS.

While many Countries around the world have moved away from texting to instant messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Telegram, etc., most people in the U.S. rely on Google Messages, iMessage, etc, because their mobile plan includes free texting. Nothing Tech's CEO, Carl Pei, says that this is a hurdle for people who want to move away from iPhones, because they are afraid of losing iMessage and its features.

Nothing Chats to bring iMessage to Android

Nothing's solution to this problem is the Nothing Chats app, which will allow Android users to sign in with their Apple ID, and communicate with their iOS friends. But, your friends won't see a Green Bubble, your texts will appear in a Blue Bubble as if you were using an iPhone. There is more to it than just the color of the bubbles, we'll get to the features in a bit.

How is this possible?

Nothing says that it has partnered with the developers of the Sunbird app, to create their own version of an app that allows Android and iOS devices to communicate seamlessly. Yes, it is a hacky solution, but it is better than nothing (pun intended). SunBird is available on the Google Play Store. It's free, but not open source. I recommend reading Sunbird's privacy policy before you start using it.

Nothing Chats will support the following features upon release: Single Messaging, Group Chats, Live typing Indicators, full resolution media sharing, and Voice Notes. The company plans to add support for Read Receipts, Message Reactions and Replies, in the future.

Now, as for people who are worried about logging into their Apple ID in a third-party app, Pei says that Nothing Chats does not store any data on its platform, and everything is stored locally on the user's device.

The Nothing Chats app will be available for download from this Friday, for Nothing Phone 2 users in the US, Canada, UK and E.U. You can read more about it on the company's website.

MKBHD has an interesting video about the Nothing Chats app, you may want to check it out. One interesting bit in it is when he explains how the app works, Nothing Tech told him that when a user signs into the app with their Apple ID, it is signing in on a Mac Mini on a server farm somewhere, which routes your messages through.

The Verge reports that Nothing’s US head of PR, Jane Nho, told them in a statement that the iCloud credentials are stored in an encrypted database, and associated with one of its Mac Minis in the US or Europe. Sunbird will delete the account information after two weeks of inactivity.

This sounds like a huge security risk, and frankly, I don't like the idea of signing in to my Apple ID in a third-party app, regardless of the features that it may have to offer.

Apple has been facing the heat from antitrust regulators to open up its iMessage platform to other services, but the Cupertino company has argued that it offers a greater level of security to its users than Android does.

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