Within just a week of its release, Nothing has removed its Nothing Chats Beta app from the Google Play Store, citing that the company is delaying the launch until further notice due to multiple bugs present in the current app.
We’ve removed the Nothing Chats beta from the Play Store and will be delaying the launch until further notice to work with Sunbird to fix several bugs.We apologise for the delay and will do right by our users.
— Nothing (@nothing) November 18, 2023
For those uninitiated, the app promises to allow Nothing Phone 2 users to communicate using iMessage with iPhone users, despite being on Android. However, in order to do so, the Nothing Chats app partnered with Sunbird, which requires one to sign into their Apple ID to enable these features.
Additionally, it was also revealed by Kishan Bagaria, founder of Texts.com, that the Sunbird app isn’t using HTTPS; instead, the “credentials are sent over plaintext HTTP.” Bagaria further added that Sunbird’s “backend is running an instance of BlueBubbles, which doesn’t support end-to-end encryption yet.” However, Sunbird too has sent detailed responses to Bagaria, one of which refutes the concern of sending credentials over plaintext HTTP.
texts team took a quick look at the tech behind nothing chats and found out it’s extremely insecureit’s not even using HTTPS, credentials are sent over plaintext HTTP
backend is running an instance of BlueBubbles, which doesn’t support end-to-end encryption yet pic.twitter.com/IcWyIbKE86
— Kishan Bagaria (@KishanBagaria) November 17, 2023
Sunbird said, “The HTTP is only used as part of the one-off initial request from the app notifying the back-end of the upcoming iMessage connection iteration that will follow via a standalone communication channel. From the start, Sunbird has been focused on security.”
Nothing is yet to release an official response to Texts.com’s detailed post about the Nothing Chats app.
With that said, shortly after Nothing released the Chats app, Apple announced that it was finally going to start supporting RCS for better text-based conversation with Android devices—supporting features like sending high-resolution media files, read receipts, typing indicators, and more. RCS functionality is expected to come to iPhones next year, and it will continue to work alongside iMessage, and this move gets Android users an official alternative to apps like Sunbird, and now, using these apps may no longer be a necessity.
