The battle of the blue bubble versus the green bubble continues to heat up. As if Google's commitment to a multi-year marketing campaign for Apple wasn't enough, smartphone maker Nothing is launching a new app that aims to bring iMessage to Android.
Adverts
In a blog post, the company announced Nothing Chats, a new app that allows users to send an iMessage from an Android phone. The company claims it was able to do this through a partnership with Sunbird, which also offers its own app for using iMessage on Android. According to the company, the Nothing Chats app will be available on Friday and will only be available to Phone(2) users.
If you're in the US, Canada, UK or EU and have a phone (2), you can download the Nothing Chats app from the Play Store starting Friday. The app is currently in beta and we're working hard to bring Nothing Chats to more places. If it's not yet available in your country, sign up for our newsletter and we'll let you know as soon as it is. More features are coming, so head over to our website for all the details.
While users can send an iMessage, not all iMessage features will be available in the Nothing Chats app at launch. Although text and image-based messages and uncompressed videos are supported, users will not be able to edit messages or use the Tapback reaction feature. The iMessage experience also breaks if a user in the group chat doesn't use iMessage – but this is already the same for iPhone users.
Adverts
The company also released a video on YouTube showing the new application. Nothing CEO Carl Pei said the app won't “change the world” but that they built it to “start a conversation.” It's also interesting that the company is waiting until Friday to release the app — I wonder if they want to see if Apple reacts negatively. Pei even hints at this at the beginning of the video when he says “I’m assuming Tim Cook is going to watch this video.”
It's also pretty obvious, as the video's thumbnail says "Sorry, Tim." You can watch the video on YouTube below:
The partnership is interesting, especially since users will need to trust Nothing and Sunbird to keep their messaging data private. While Apple considers privacy “a fundamental human right” and builds it into its services as a core feature now, Nothing and Sunbird’s positions on privacy aren’t as well-known (or perhaps well-marketed).
Regardless, if Nothing's goal was to start a conversation, they'll probably achieve just that. It is not yet known how long and how impactful the conversation will be. Google has been trying to raise this conversation for some time now, so we'll see if Nothing has more success.
—————-
The battle of the blue bubble versus the green bubble continues to heat up. As if Google's commitment to a multi-year marketing campaign for Apple wasn't enough, smartphone maker Nothing is launching a new app that aims to bring iMessage to Android.
In a blog post, the company announced Nothing Chats, a new app that allows users to send an iMessage from an Android phone. The company claims it was able to do this through a partnership with Sunbird, which also offers its own app for using iMessage on Android. According to the company, the Nothing Chats app will be available on Friday and will only be available to Phone(2) users.
If you're in the US, Canada, UK or EU and have a phone (2), you can download the Nothing Chats app from the Play Store starting Friday. The app is currently in beta and we're working hard to bring Nothing Chats to more places. If it's not yet available in your country, sign up for our newsletter and we'll let you know as soon as it is. More features are coming, so head over to our website for all the details.
While users can send an iMessage, not all iMessage features will be available in the Nothing Chats app at launch. Although text and image-based messages and uncompressed videos are supported, users will not be able to edit messages or use the Tapback reaction feature. The iMessage experience also breaks if a user in the group chat doesn't use iMessage – but this is already the same for iPhone users.
The partnership is interesting, especially since users will need to trust Nothing and Sunbird to keep their messaging data private. While Apple considers privacy “a fundamental human right” and builds it into its services as a core feature now, Nothing and Sunbird’s positions on privacy aren’t as well-known (or perhaps well-marketed).
Regardless, if Nothing's goal was to start a conversation, they'll probably achieve just that. It is not yet known how long and how impactful the conversation will be. Google has been trying to raise this conversation for some time now, so we'll see if Nothing has more success.
