Nothing has announced that the Nothing Phone 2 will support iMessage starting Friday, November 17. And no, Apple has not embraced the platform interoperability messaging service that, according to documents from the legal battle with Epic, decided to keep closed to prevent some of its users from ending up switching to Android.
This novelty has not been promoted by the European Commission either – although these days it is evaluating whether to include the service within the Digital Markets Act (DMA) -. The reality is that the company founded by Carl Pei has launched its own methodology to bring iMessage to its flagship mobile phone.
Nothing brings iMessage to the Nothing Phone 2
“Tim Cook will not be happy,” says Pei himself in a video where he explains some details of this movement designed to “break barriers” that separate iOS and Android users. This scenario, perhaps, can be better understood in the United States, where applications like WhatsApp are not as popular.
Americans primarily use messaging apps built into their mobile devices. In this sense, when there is interaction between iOS and Android users, functions are lost along the way. In the iPhone chat window, for example, messages from another platform appear in green bubbles.
Nothing promises to close this gap, but the proposal made by the British company has some nuances that must be noted. First of all, as we say, its scheme It is not endorsed by Apple and uses a specific application called Nothing Chats to allow this cross-platform compatibility.
Nothing Chats, in turn, is based on the Sunbird application, a service that acts as an intermediary. So, if you have a Nothing Phone 2 you will have to log in with your iCloud credentials in Nothing Chats, and Sunbird will save your credentials “as a token” in a database that, they promise, is protected under encryption.
As Nothing’s public relations manager explained to The Verge, Sunbird’s architecture uses Mac Mini computers in the United States and Europe to operate the service. And, according to the Nothing page: “messages are not stored on Sunbird servers and are only active on the device.”
Now, not all iMessage features will be available in Nothing Chat, at least for now. The day of its launch will arrive with the possibility of sending messages, participating in group chats, seeing the “typing” legend, sending high-resolution files and sending voice notes. Read message confirmations, reactions and replies will arrive “soon”.
We are facing a risky bet by Nothing, at least. We will have to wait to find out Apple’s reaction, which until now has not been publicly expressed. Furthermore, we do not know if he will take any kind of measure in this regard.
At the privacy level we will have to take into account that we will be using a service that will act as an intermediary to allow compatibility between messaging platforms. And, therefore, we are talking about an unofficial possibility given that iMessage for Apple remains a platform closed to the devices in its ecosystem.
Images: Nothing