I’ve never owned an Apple device or dealt with iMessage chats before but my understanding is that Android users and their blue bubbles don’t have access to some of the features of iMessage and that messes with the chat for everyone or something. Also LUL Android user is too poor/not cool enough to own an iPhone. That’s what I’ve gathered from Americans on the internet anyway.
This would not be a problem, but Apple purposefully and maliciously degrades the messaging experience by compressing the shit out of any MMS sent to (or received from) non-apple devices. Even non-multimedia stuff like group chats or reactions are being broken. On purpose. To piss you off just enough to maybe consider switching to their closed proprietary ecosystem.
It may not work on you and me, but you’d be surprised how effective it is on young impressionable teens who are under extreme peer pressure by their stupid “friends” who are shallow enough to care about the chat bubble colors. My 16 y/o son was quite happy with his Pixel 5a, but was literally bullied into switching to an iphone. He spent a decent chunk of his summer job’s earnings to buy a used 12 mini and a replacement battery for it. Now he can’t sideload apps, or rearrange his home screen, or a myriad of other things that he’s gotten used to on Android, but at least his bubbles are the “right” color.
Some of the messaging community believes that software that is open source is more secure. It is our view that it is not. The more visibility there is into the infrastructure and code, the easier it is to penetrate it. By design, open source software is distributed in nature. There is no central authority to ensure quality and maintenance and by putting that responsibility on Sunbird, development would not be feasible. Open source vulnerabilities typically stem from poorly written code that leave gaps, which attackers can use to carryout malicious activities.
To help satisfy our own ambitious goals of providing total privacy and security, we are currently undergoing a third party audit that will validate our security, encryption and data policies and plan on receiving ISO 27001 certification after launch.
I wonder how long they’ve been working on this integration and i bet they didn’t see this coming: Apple says iPhones will support RCS in 2024 . I mean it’s technically not the same product. RCS will replace sms/mms and “Nothing Chats” is an iMessage back door (?).
Given how aggressive Apple is in protecting their walled garden, I don’t expect this to survive the litigation. Apple tends to ignore individual hackers (look at hackintoshes) but businesses making money off unauthorized use of their APIs don’t last very long before the tidal wave of lawyers come.
Maybe, but seeing the recent scrutiny they have had for not allowing sideloading of apps, killing this might actually push legislation against it. As an android user, I wouldn’t use this app even if I had access to it because it’s not secure and because I don’t give a shit about blue bubbles.
The company behind the feature Nothing is advertising, Sunbird, claims that their solution preserves iMessage’s end-to-end encryption. They also claim they have figured out how to handle thousands of accounts on a single Mac. Both problems Beeper hasn’t been able to solve.
Unfortunately they have failed to provide any details about how they accomplish these things, which has Ars Technica feeling pretty skeptical about the whole endeavor.
You are logging with your apple ID into a Mac mini in a server farm somewhere in the world, and it acts as a relay to send you your imessages over their closed source app, that does not mean secure to me at all, even MKBHD was a little iffy about the security of this service.
Log in with your existing Apple ID username or create a new account to start sending and receiving blue bubbles.
So I need an apple ID to use this?
Pass.
If you’re a Phone (2) user in one of the select countries where Nothing Chats is available, you can download the messaging app from the Google Play Store.
I recommend getting beeper it’s similar to sunbird although it is paid but they do open source all of their back end infrastructure. Beeper is essentially just a matrix client for a bunch of different chat service bridges.
beeper does look interesting but I am weary of sign up and we will tell you when you can join type apps.
And this rings a few alarm bells for me:
if you send a message from Beeper to a friend on WhatsApp, the message is encrypted on your Beeper client, sent to the Beeper web service, which decrypts and re-encrypts the message with WhatsApp’s proprietary encryption protocol.
I would love for this to work but that alone has a host of issues around third party trust.
New European legislation is coming into effect in 2024 and will force iMessage and WhatsApp to expose an interoperable end-to-end-encrypted API. Our servers are located in Europe, and we will switch to this open interface as soon as it is ready.
Sadly, not being in the EU means I will likely pass on this but is sounds great for EU residents when the above is implemented.
Fair enough. Although if you are interested all of their messaging bridges are available on their GitHub if you would like to self host them with your own matrix server. That way you don’t have to worry about them decrypting and reencrypting your messages.
But also, 99% of the population is not technical enough to download such apps and use them. They will only use the default apps that came with their phone, whatever outdated protocol they happen to be utilizing. Why else do you think Facebook, for example, pays manufacturers to preload their crapware on new handsets? And even more to make it as difficult to remove as possible.
WhatsApp does not come pre-installed on most phones (for some reason it often isn’t included even with Facebook’s crapware). It is still the de facto chat app in India, Brazil and dozens of other Asian, South American and European countries.
As far as I know, SMS in India and Brazil is not free. This means that for majority of users switching to a data-based app is not so much as a choice, but a necessity. In the US texting via SMS has been free for several decades, so there’s no reason for people to look for an alternative.
Exactly. It has reached critical mass to a point where if you’re not on it, you’re basically not communicating.
Also, I remember that cross-carrier calling was an issue, which is why most people would need to use dual-SIM phones. Not sure if it’s the same for SMS.
The EU is currently evaluating if iMessage is considered a “gatekeeper”. Killing these services now solidifies they are gatekeepers and introduces EU regulation.
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I have absolutely zero confidence that Apple will allow this to exist once they get enough wind of it.
I posted this in another technology fediverse but think it is relevant here also:
Ars Technica covered this much better
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/11/nothing-phone-says-it-will-hack-into-imessage-bring-blue-bubbles-to-android/
Basically, the company providing the service is shady and should not be trusted.
Why do people care about blue bubbles?
I’ve never owned an Apple device or dealt with iMessage chats before but my understanding is that Android users and their blue bubbles don’t have access to some of the features of iMessage and that messes with the chat for everyone or something. Also LUL Android user is too poor/not cool enough to own an iPhone. That’s what I’ve gathered from Americans on the internet anyway.
This would not be a problem, but Apple purposefully and maliciously degrades the messaging experience by compressing the shit out of any MMS sent to (or received from) non-apple devices. Even non-multimedia stuff like group chats or reactions are being broken. On purpose. To piss you off just enough to maybe consider switching to their closed proprietary ecosystem.
It may not work on you and me, but you’d be surprised how effective it is on young impressionable teens who are under extreme peer pressure by their stupid “friends” who are shallow enough to care about the chat bubble colors. My 16 y/o son was quite happy with his Pixel 5a, but was literally bullied into switching to an iphone. He spent a decent chunk of his summer job’s earnings to buy a used 12 mini and a replacement battery for it. Now he can’t sideload apps, or rearrange his home screen, or a myriad of other things that he’s gotten used to on Android, but at least his bubbles are the “right” color.
This makes me roll my eyes. From the Sunbird faq:
Will the app [sunbird] be open source?
Sure Jan.
edit: source: https://www.sunbirdapp.com/ at the bottom
The reddest of red flags.
Yeah, because paid programmers never write bad closed-source code…
I wonder how long they’ve been working on this integration and i bet they didn’t see this coming: Apple says iPhones will support RCS in 2024 . I mean it’s technically not the same product. RCS will replace sms/mms and “Nothing Chats” is an iMessage back door (?).
Given how aggressive Apple is in protecting their walled garden, I don’t expect this to survive the litigation. Apple tends to ignore individual hackers (look at hackintoshes) but businesses making money off unauthorized use of their APIs don’t last very long before the tidal wave of lawyers come.
Maybe, but seeing the recent scrutiny they have had for not allowing sideloading of apps, killing this might actually push legislation against it. As an android user, I wouldn’t use this app even if I had access to it because it’s not secure and because I don’t give a shit about blue bubbles.
The company behind the feature Nothing is advertising, Sunbird, claims that their solution preserves iMessage’s end-to-end encryption. They also claim they have figured out how to handle thousands of accounts on a single Mac. Both problems Beeper hasn’t been able to solve.
Unfortunately they have failed to provide any details about how they accomplish these things, which has Ars Technica feeling pretty skeptical about the whole endeavor.
You are logging with your apple ID into a Mac mini in a server farm somewhere in the world, and it acts as a relay to send you your imessages over their closed source app, that does not mean secure to me at all, even MKBHD was a little iffy about the security of this service.
If you want blue bubbles so much, use Signal.
Or green bubbles, or red bubbles, pink bubbles, multicoloured bubbles
I currently use purple bubbles hee hee
So I need an apple ID to use this?
Pass.
So it only works in a few countries?
Pass.
And it only works on one OEM’s phones?
Massive Pass.
I recommend getting beeper it’s similar to sunbird although it is paid but they do open source all of their back end infrastructure. Beeper is essentially just a matrix client for a bunch of different chat service bridges.
Cheers for the heads up.
beeper does look interesting but I am weary of sign up and we will tell you when you can join type apps.
And this rings a few alarm bells for me:
I would love for this to work but that alone has a host of issues around third party trust.
Sadly, not being in the EU means I will likely pass on this but is sounds great for EU residents when the above is implemented.
Fair enough. Although if you are interested all of their messaging bridges are available on their GitHub if you would like to self host them with your own matrix server. That way you don’t have to worry about them decrypting and reencrypting your messages.
I made a video about why this has to work like this and what you can do to prevent it but still have all the benefits:
https://tube.jeena.net/w/rYhp4ZT5Ykw1aBGqMr62KG
How far would you go to conform for something as mundane as chat bubble colors? How soulless will your life have to be to demand something like this?
Yea this is fucking wild and pathetic.
It’s not about the bubbles. It’s the group chats, encryption, media size, and other rich chat features.
All these features you get much better using actual E2E-encrypted chat apps like Signal or WhatsApp like the rest of the world.
This is true.
But also, 99% of the population is not technical enough to download such apps and use them. They will only use the default apps that came with their phone, whatever outdated protocol they happen to be utilizing. Why else do you think Facebook, for example, pays manufacturers to preload their crapware on new handsets? And even more to make it as difficult to remove as possible.
WhatsApp does not come pre-installed on most phones (for some reason it often isn’t included even with Facebook’s crapware). It is still the de facto chat app in India, Brazil and dozens of other Asian, South American and European countries.
As far as I know, SMS in India and Brazil is not free. This means that for majority of users switching to a data-based app is not so much as a choice, but a necessity. In the US texting via SMS has been free for several decades, so there’s no reason for people to look for an alternative.
SMS has been free in India since 2016. Though one could say WhatsApp had already become dominant by then, so it stuck.
Exactly. It has reached critical mass to a point where if you’re not on it, you’re basically not communicating.
Also, I remember that cross-carrier calling was an issue, which is why most people would need to use dual-SIM phones. Not sure if it’s the same for SMS.
The problem is getting other people to also use those apps :(
Would not say this implementation is a step in the right direction at all. They’re logging into your Apple account through a Mac Mini.
They’re logging into your account with a Mac VM*
I’m sure if it picks up any amount in of momentum, Apple will kill it, along with Beeper.
The EU is currently evaluating if iMessage is considered a “gatekeeper”. Killing these services now solidifies they are gatekeepers and introduces EU regulation.