iMessage, now on Android, courtesy: Nothing

New Delhi: “Bring on the blue bubbles”, Carl Pei, the cofounder of London-based technology brand Nothing, said while announcing a new chat app that claims to remove the lines of discrimination between iOS and Android users.

The company’s latest flagship phone will soon support sending messages to iOS users that will reportedly show in the blue bubble associated with iMessage users, instead of the green background that appears for Android users when they text iOS users. But why the need for such an app?

The Green Bubble Stigma

Global media reports found Android users are often ostracised among iOS-only peers. In markets such as the US and Europe, where the iPhone has a stronghold, especially among the youth, the distinctive blue and green chat bubbles on iMessage is yet another example of the walled garden Apple maintains around its products and services. Android users are instantly identified in a group chat in Apple’s iMessage, as outbound messages of all Android users turn green, rather than blue. Android users also don’t get to use multimedia content in their messaging. Texts to iOS users go as standard SMS, instead of being loaded with the likes of emojis, images, and videos.

Did Apple ever consider removing the distinction?

During the trial against Epic Games, court documents revealed Apple’s head of software engineering Craig Federighi advocating against enabling iMessage for Android users a decade ago even when other Apple executives were mulling on extending support. Federighi said enabling iMessage for Android would “simply serve to remove an obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones”.

Google Takes the Higher Ground

Around the same time, Google launched Chat, a new messaging app based on RCS, or Rich Communication Services, a protocol that adds new features to the standard SMS including read receipts, typing indicators, and the ability to send high-quality photos and videos. Google’s involvement gave the protocol a much-needed boost, putting the feature across a vast majority of Android phones. However, Apple has so far refrained from allowing support for the protocol in iMessage, a move many feel will blur the lines of distinction between iOS and Android.

Apple Refuses to Budge

Apple has remained steadfast in its support of its own platform, iMessage, leading many critics to question the iPhone maker’s reasons for not adopting the worldwide standard. As a result of Apple's stance, Android users who communicate with iPhone users are often at a disadvantage. For example, Android users cannot send high-quality photos and videos to iPhone users, and they cannot see read receipts or typing indicators.

Enter Nothing Chat

The new app from Nothing, called Nothing Chat, has seemingly solved the issue. Users of the Nothing Phone (2), the company’s most recent smartphone, now will see blue bubbles when sending texts to iMessage using the app. The app is slated to launch in the US, Canada, the UK and the European Union on Friday.

“Nothing is the first mobile company to offer a solution to one of the biggest frustrations between Android and iOS users. Nothing Chats, powered by Sunbird, allows you to directly message other phone users from your Nothing phone via blue bubbles,” the company wrote on its website.

“We believe in windows, not walls. If messaging services are dividing phone users, then we want to break those barriers down,” the blog said.

Privacy Concerns Remain

The green bubble debate has led many to dabble around and get around the green bubble stigma. A crop of apps such as Beeper and Sunbird has sprung up to address the issue using ingenious workarounds, which may raise questions around data privacy.

For instance, Sunbird, on which the Nothing Chat app is based, works by routing messages through a server that enables iMessage features, allowing messages from Android users appear in blue bubbles on iOS devices.

The app, in fact, uses a cluster of Mac PCs to manage user logins and message delivery, replicating Apple’s own iMessage ecosystem. Sunbird claims to employ end-to-end encryption measures to protect user data. However, the fact that the data is stored and processed in a third-party, cloud-based infrastructure could be a potential privacy risk.

Sunbird's operation involves intercepting, reformatting and forwarding user messages. This raises concerns about the potential for the app to intercept and modify messages without the user's knowledge or consent. While Sunbird maintains that it does not tamper with user messages, the lack of transparency over its message processing procedures is a cause for concern.