Apple's walled-garden approach with iMessage has long irked many, especially Google, who has been pushing the iPhone maker to tear down barriers and adopt RCS (Rich Communication Services). But Apple hasn’t budged so far, and doesn’t seem to be anytime soon either. Now, Nothing - the startup founded by former OnePlus executive Carl Pei - has seemingly taken matters into its own hands. The company has announced Nothing Chats, a new app that promises to make its upcoming Phone 2 not just iMessage-compatible but also gain some bonus Apple-exclusive features. The app will turn green bubbles into blue, and on top of that, offer iMessage goodies like read receipts, voice notes and full-res photo sharing. RCS support will also be present. If you are wondering why no one else thought about this before, there actually are a few. One of them is a developer called Sunbird that has been claiming to enable iMessage on Android with an app, albeit it’s yet to announce an official launch. Nothing Chats taps into Sunbird's tech but packages it into an app designed in-house. It all sounds so easy so why has no other OEM invested in an app like this? The short answer is because of the way it works, which isn't that simple. Sunbird says that when users first log into Nothing Chats with their Apple ID, credentials are encrypted and stored on remote Mac Minis operated by Sunbird in North America and Europe. This only covers the bits about login though, and while Sunbird hasn’t painted a full picture of how this works, it’s possible that it's done by connecting the Android device to an Apple system – as apparent from the use of Mac Minis. But exactly how these Apple devices are able to potentially handle thousands of text messages and Apple IDs at the same time remains unknown. Either way, it’s clear that the method involves a lot of patchwork, meaning security and scalability are suspect. There’s also the possibility of Apple finding a way to block Sunbird entirely, or worse, suing Nothing. A small app developer like Sunbird may have been easy for Apple to ignore, but Nothing is different. Still, Nothing has allayed some of the security concerns in a statement to Android Authority. “Once you log in to the Chats app for the first time using either your existing Apple ID or creating a new one, your credentials are tokenized in an encrypted database and become associated with one of Sunbird’s North America or Europe-based Mac Minis (depending on where you’re located), creating an encrypted relay for iMessages sent through the app. Once the relay is created, it’s locked and cannot be accessed by Sunbird or anyone else even if they had access to the physical server itself. The only action Sunbird can take with the relay is to delete it,” said a spokesperson from the brand. Additionally, Sunbird is also working towards ISO 27001 certification for info security compliance, according to the spokesperson. Nothing Chats will be available starting November 17 on the Google Play Store across the US, Canada, UK, and EU, but a banner on Nothing's India microsite does say "Coming soon." For now, we’ll have to wait to see if Nothing's clever patchwork pays off or invites the wrath of the iPhone maker.
