Nothing Phone builds a blue bubble iMessage bridge while Google and Apple fight over RCS
Nothing Chats is powered by a name you might be familiar with.
They've stated that they are using Mac minis as relays. They claim that they do not store messages or credentials, but I don't see how that's possible if it relies on a Mac or iOS relay server that they control.
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If it's anything like Beeper 's Matrix bridge then it's E2EE Matrix encrypted between your device and the bridge server and then using Apple's iMessage encryption between the bridge server and Apple/the other user.
The weak point is always going to be the bridge software as by necessity the message must be decrypted there to re-encrypt for iMessage.
At least in Beeper/Matrix the bridge software is open source and one can host their own bridge while continuing to use the existing Beeper/Matrix main server.
Doing so gives you no-trust security since the Beeper/Matrix host cannot decrypt the messages between you and the bridge you control and rubbing your own bridge eliminates that weak point.
They use a Mac mini somewhere to route these messages. So you're logging into that Mac mini with your iCloud credentials. Sounds like a privacy/security nightmare and creepy as fuck.
It seems like all efforts to "bridge" imessage to anything outside apple software work this way - there's a Matrix bridge and a dedicated open source app and they both rely on the imessage client on a mac. Is there a legitimate reason for it not being reverse-engineered yet?
Is there a legitimate reason for it not being reverse-engineered yet?
The actual protocol isn't a secret. It's that the authentication of the device relies on a hardware key, and that key is fully locked down by Apple (as it also secures the user's biometric logins, keyring, financial information in Apple Wallet, etc.).
I use beeper (a version of these apps that is actually released but kinda shit) and it's perfectly fine. Their solution would be better because it runs locally on the phone, however it's only on supported phones which is most likely just nothing phones.
I predict one of two outcomes once Apple becomes aware of this. Either they'll modify the iMessage protocol to break Nothing Phones compatibility, or they'll sue Nothing Phone for violating some kind of IP law. Apple absolutely wants to maintain their walled garden and letting a non-Apple product transparently interact on equal footing with Apple products runs counter to that.
Outcome 3: they buy whatever company is responsible for creating this compatibility layer, slowly integrate it so they can skate past several international regulations/lawsuits trying to open iMessage, and declare victory.
The messaging is provided by a third party who is dedicated to working on their iMessage compatibility. Apple has no reason to stop this because this is a good move for them in the larger battle between mobile messaging standards.
Google owns Jibe, the company behind RCS messaging found on all Android phones and an emerging, competent product from the only game in town that can compete with Apple. Google has decided to take this to the government level and push for a unified phone messaging standard, normally a good thing, but proposed their own RCS solution. The one they own and whose servers Google scrapes for user info.
Apple is pushing iMessage as a protest against Google and their inevitable lawsuit to conform with RCS adoption. Android may win unless Apple shows it has parity and provides a non-legislative option: if enough people use iMessage then governments don't have to make any laws or enforce changes. The company Nothing is using iMessage, which helps Apple prove there is both a significant user base, which would cause a burden on Apple and it's customers to change, and there is no monopoly on iMessage or messaging in general. So if enough people use iMessage, Apple sees it as a good thing.
RCS is not a Google product, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSMA
Apple has been pushing iMessage for quite some time, but they want to keep it just to their platform and have made no attempt to make it open to other users. That's Apples way and it's not as a "protest" to Google lol
That's like saying they made the lightning port as a protest to USB standards, nah they just want their proprietary shit.
Nah, Apple doesn't care.
These bridges like the ones found in Beeper/Matrix require a Mac server to perform the handshake with Apple's.
As long as these servers require Apple hardware to function Apple is making money.
It's roughly equivalent to running iMessage on your Mac at home and making an Android/PC app that remotely sends/receives messages to/from that iMessage app on your Mac.
Nah, if it gets big enough, Apple will care. They literally said (based on court document) that iMessage on Android is a horrible idea because it'll make it easier for people to switch platform.
Solving the "blue bubble" problem is easy. Stop giving a fuck about what iPhone users care about.
Or Apple can stop being a removed and just change the hex code.
They want iPhone users to have want they want and need when switching to Android. I think it's not a bad idea. Personally, I find MMS to be horrible. Not because of lack of features but because it is different for everybody in one group chat. The messages become out of order, things don't send but say they do, etc. iMessage isn't the best solution, but if I'm being kicked out of group chats because I'm that one person making it MMS, then I'm all for iMessage on Android.
They removed about it constantly
I'm an adult, and I deal with family members removed at me that are over 50. I explain to them every time that this is 100% Apple's designed problem, and they like to roll their eyes in response.
Apple users CAN be really fucking annoying to deal with. In my admittedly limited experience, most of them are this way.
I'm an iPhone user and I don't care about this. Not everyone who has an iPhone gives a shit about what phones other people use. Use whatever phone you want and whatever computer you want and whatever OS you want and stop giving a fuck about what other people use like it's some sort of crime.
My problem with that is that a lot of them then insist on using an outdated standard that lacks encryption and high resolution media instead of just downloading something like WhatsApp, Signal, or Matrix.
The stupidest thing about this is cultural identification with the message apps "bubble" color.
Isn’t it the fact that there will be features missing if someone doesn’t have iMessage? I genuinely don’t think anybody would care if it were just the color of the bubble that was different and nothing else.
Yes. The iPhone to MMS connection has filesize limits that basically make sending video horribly compressed, and even still images are visibly limited in quality.
And then message reactions aren't directly supported in MMS, so it becomes a clunky communications experience between iPhone and Android texting.
There's also delivery confirmation, read receipts, and other indicators in an iMessage chat that aren't supported in MMS.
The color of the bubble is a subtle UI indicator of what features are supported in the chat.
*exceptional 'murican identification with the blue bubble.
And the same enlightened kids who are so aware about discrimination and gender fluidity (which is good) are the ones discriminating against others because they don't have an iPhone.
It's a status symbol, sure... it may be stupid and primitive as a trophy around a caveman's neck... but we are just wired like that.
Nothing special here.
RCS sucks ass. I have had more missed messages and fucked up communications due to it NOT USING SMS FALLBACK. other person isn't available via IP? Then FUCK YOUR MESSAGE.
Want a different app? FUCK YOU
Wanna sort your messages, or filter them, or run an automation? FUCK. YOU.
I don't blame apple for not implementing this shit.
Also, fuck bubble shaming
I haven't used SMS for anything besides receiving auth codes and maybe sending some short info to a stranger (for example a contractor). But then again, I live in Europe.
There is a reason they don't send it until someone is online. On iMessage, you know if someone read it, not if they actually are able to receive it. If they fix the bug where the time of the message is when it finishes sending, it will be a great feature because you know if they have access to their phone and data. It will try to send it throughout the down time. Also you can use other rcs apps and have things go through rcs messages because of desktop authentication.
This is dumb. For two reasons:
I think issue two is a great way to address issue one.
They have made a closed ecosystem to support their lack of innovation and address their declining sales.
But now people could be able to get into this system that otherwise wouldn't and use it without giving apple any information, other than potentially putting actual customers messages and AppleIDs at risk.
Because the android forever people who this is for will not have anything important linked to their AppleID but the people they message likely will or at the very least now their communications are at risk given they go through a third party machine.
RCS is practically limited to android ecosystem. Many of the carriers are dependent on Google Jibe to support it.
No one except Google and approved manufacturers can make a RCS app.
It's limited to Android because this is the only alternative to iPhone and iPhone doesn't support it.
Many carriers rely on Google Jibe but not all of them, and they don't have to.
That's true and I agree that this also stupid. We should all go back to emails with pgp encryption. These are both open standards.
Teenagers today suffer unique threats to their health and wellbeing from technology. It may be super easy for you to say "who the fuck cares about the color" but that is far from the case for US teenagers. Willingly setting yourself apart from the group in high school is a precarious move in the best of circumstances.
And for the rest of us, this goes way beyond the color being used. The SMS/MMS fallback in iMessage offers a terrible experience for non-Apple users. Low quality media, inability to manage one's own memeberships in groups, and no encryption. For those worried about the lack of e2ee: Android users participating in an iMessage conversation don't have that today. You're not losing anything from this solution.
Legal disclosures prove that Apple knowingly uses iMessage in an anticompetitive fashion. It's a moat to keep people from switching away from iPhone. They are leveraging their position in the messaging market to shore up their restrictive phone products. I wish US antitrust enforcement was stronger in this area but until then, I hope Nothing has great success in breaking down this illegal barrier.
Really interesting how different the US is. Here in central europe it's pretty much whatsapp, telegram, signal. Most people use 2 or 3 of those. Doesn't matter what device they are using
iPhones are really popular over there. Most people have one. For teenagers it's something ridiculous like 85% of them using an iPhone. In Europe we have a more balanced split, so only using iMessage wouldn't fly here.
I've seen a bit of an uptick in the use of Signal in the US, like it's worth having it installed...sorta.
Personally, I miss out on a lot of group chats because all of my friends have iPhones.
They'll create a group chat, I won't get any messages, then suddenly I'm getting a call on Saturday saying "hey are you coming to the party?" or more often than not I don't get notified at all and end up hearing about all of the things I miss at a later time. It's annoying, but I really hate iOS so I deal with it.
I've got an iMessage server running on my NAS but it's not perfect, it requires that the iPhone user send the message to my iMessage account associated with my email, not with my phone number.
PyPush lets you link your number to your Apple Account using demo.py if you need that. It needs a cron job to sit on it for the first few weeks but after that its fine.
How the hell do so many teens afford these??
It's far cheaper than your first car and arguably more important. You find a way when you have to.
How is Apple keeping iMessage an Apple exclusive anticompetitive? That's like saying Google needs to share their search algorithms because they're "leveraging their position in the search engine market to shore up their restrictive products."
In the end, Apple created a service that is massively popular and makes people want to use their products. The fact that US teenagers refuse to use one of their many competitors is hardly their fault. The rest of the world doesn't give a shit about iMessage either.
Google search is available on apple devices though. Same with stuff like Gmail. Imagine if YouTube didn't have an app for iOS and you had to use the browser. That would be worse for consumers, but Google could use it as a way to force people into Android. That's what Apple is doing with iMessage and the whole phone ecosystem is worse because of it, whether you care or not.
You can read about it here: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/04/09/epic-apple-no-imessage-on-android/
Using a dominant market segment to reduce competition in another has always been an antitrust violation. A notable example is MS leveraging their Windows monopoly to force Internet Explorer on people.
You'd have a point if Apple was in the search engine market.
Honestly I'm typing this on a Nothing phone and if this appears on my phone instead of them actually fixing the many bugs I'll be quite pissed.
Every update this phone gets worse both in bugs and battery life and the company seems more obsessed with things like beer, clothing lines and now imessage than actually trying to fix anything that's actually important.
Nothing often gives me the impression that they sit around and get high off the smell of their own farts. Glad to hear there is some truth to this speculation.
They are the punk-rock of smartphones
if it was imagined by CEOs of a major label.
At least, they got the cover art right.
Wife's Nothing(1) seems just fine. My only issue with the design is how it acts like an echo chamber for the haptic motor. It actually is quite noisy at the higher settings.
This really demonstrates how apple has its customers and competitors by the balls when it comes to messaging. This OEM is putting time and resources into developing an unauthorized iMessage app using banks of mac minis as servers and requiring users to grant them access to their iCloud account, a system that apple could "break" or sue out of existence on a whim. RCS isn't the perfect solution, but it's better than this.
Google wants everyone's message data, that's why their pushing it so aggressively.
RCS is technically an open standard. But in reality it completely depends on Google's Jibe system to make it work for many carriers.
The recent anti competitive trials has shown Google is willing to pay apple billions for people's internet activity to go through them. With Google currently pushing anti iMessage ads to shame apple into supports RCS, Google has most likely offered Apple a lot of money to use RCS. Apple has decided it's not worth it.
Why apple isn't supporting RCS is unknown. But it either user privacy or user retention to their ecosystem. Either way they don't think more exposure to Google is good for their users. This 'open' standard is a joke. If it doesn't make Google money soon, they kill it like all their previous messenger projects.
RCS is far worse than this. It's garbage, doesn't work.
When I watched MKBHDs video on this, my first thought was whether or not we could selfhost a service like this. If I could run this through my own Mac mini server to my own / family’s phones, that would be great. I don’t think I’d ever feel comfortable logging into my iCloud account on some company’s server with just their pinky promise as a guarantee.
You can self host this already, most likely what nothing is doing https://github.com/mautrix/imessage
That is fascinating. Thanks for the link.
Well yeah it's not. But it's the first time something like this has been integrated onto an personal consumer device.
Sunbird is closed source so you just have to take their word for it when they say they don't store messages or credentials. How the fuck could you know if they're lying or not? You can't because it's closed source.
As much as I have issues with the similar Beeper, at least Beeper is open sourcing their bridges.
Just read through their faq
Some of the messaging community believes that software that is open source is more secure. It is our view that it is not.
That's a nope from me.
Yeah okay at first I thought "closed source isn't necessarily a problem as long as there's a good reason".
But nope. That's the worst reason.
In other words: "Some of the messaging community believes that software that can be controled by the user and is clear how it works is doing what the user wants it to. It is our view that it is not."
They are just like the rest of big companies. Remember when Facebook was a privacy respecting and friendly alternative for MySpace? Or Apple for IBM? Or Google for other search engines?
They host their iMessage related shit the exact same way, so the amount of trust in the service is basically identical, at 0
Apple will just block it once they catch on
In a video from MKBHD they mentioned this problem and they said that the idea is basically that Apple will not block it because it will bring them bad PR and attention from regulators who are concerned with anti trust issues. Hard to predict what will actually happen but Apple just blocking 3rd party access and citing (legitimate) privacy and security concerns seems to be a likely outcome.
Apple should block it. It requires people to hand off their apple accounts to an organisation. Someone using an account like this should be blocked by apple's servers. As they clearly aren't the account owner.
Many online accounts will return a password incorrect message, even when the password is correct, if they believe your aren't the account holder (bots, scammers etc). To allow this puts users accounts at risks.
Some bad actors are likely to mimic this setup. Advertise access to iMessage for Android users, then use the apple account to defraud or blackmail them. It will be very attractive to previous iPhone users that will have payment details, addresses and media stored with their apple account.
Dont see how they could. The servers are real apple devices. Apple has no way to know if this is a mac from a real user or somebody proposing a message bridging service to non apple users. Dont see why they'd care either as they make money from the purchased server infrastructure.
This has been around for a few years now as Blhebubble, and they haven't blocked it.
There's a couple other bridge services out there too, and those haven't been blocked... Yet.
It's also noteworthy that the RCS platform adopted by companies worldwide is run by Jibe, a company owned by Google. Doubtless, Apple doesn't want to use Google's servers any more than it needs to.
"open protocol" my ass. Google just wants control over everything.
The blue vs green bubble thing never really bothered me. As long as I can communicate with the person I'm talking to, I don't care how the messages are sent, unless maybe if I don't want a message to be sent over plain sms. It's ridiculous how it has become a status thing.
It is though. I'm the only developer in an agency of designers. Yes, they all have iphones and I'm the only Android lol
It's absurd, but i get the blue bubble looks of superiority all the time.
It's not just about the color of the bubble. If you go on an outing with a group of iPhone users, there's a high chance they'll create a group chat with and without you, because the group chat with you won't let them send HQ photos. Even if they aren't trying to be exclusionary, someone will inevitably forget to send messages to both group chats. iMessage incentivizes situations like this which socially punishes Android users.
I hear this a lot, I’ve not known a single person who has considered it a status thing. There are people who have cheap phones from both apple and android and they were made fun of for the price of the phone, not the bubble color. iMessage just made it much nicer to talk to people. “I can send messages over wifi!” made it so you could send messages in school or anywhere with a big metal roof. “The images are better!” These were limitations of the SMS standard that Apple designed around. Now? Yeah, there’s other options, but back then iMessage made its hold by being able to be used by people who couldn’t use SMS or didn’t want to for whatever reason
“The images are better!” These were limitations of the SMS standard that Apple designed around.
Apple intentionally sets the MMS size limit extremely low, much lower than any other manufacturers or carriers.
This is done intentionally to make communications with non-apple devices a worse experience.
They weren't just "making the best of what they had"
They were/are actively making the non-proprietary experience worse.
On purpose
I'm still curious if this is even legal. It seems like a really good idea, but is Apple going to be able to sue over it? I almost feel like it could be covered under the reverse engineering clause, because it is meant to enable interoperability with another product. But Apple's terms of service already seem really hamstrung on what is and is not allowed. With the macOS SLA beginning with:
For use on Apple-branded Systems
Obviously iMessage isn't macOS, and I can't seem to find a specific terms of service for iMessage specifically, but it is running on it. Which is what would make this integration possible. So what makes me wonder if Apple's lawyers could find a clause there.
The reason they're moving forward with this is because if Apple tries to sue, it could make a case for Google that Apple is trying to take control of messaging in the United States. If they don't sue, should Google come after them down the line Apple can say "we're aware of 3rd party iMessage and decided to not take action to increase interoperability" yadda yadda.
That's my guess anyway.
This sounds like The Onion, ridiculous.
This could easily be blocked by Apple
Are these a Matrix/Beeper bridge?
Whatever, Matrix/XMPP work with carrier-independent protocols.
Nice one, not sure why it's geo restricted to the US, Canada, and Europe though, unless that's a limitation of the bridge software they're using. Could be a pretty neat selling point for a small subset of users, but I don't think it'll make people reconsider which Android they choose to upgrade to.
Also nice to see e2ee RCS implemented outside of Samsung and Google's apps.
For anyone looking at alternatives, there's AirMessage (if you have a mac, real or virtualized), and Beeper (not free, in any sense of the word, but supports even more messengers)
Its not really a problem being restricted to the US and Canada since they are the only countries having that 'problem'. No one uses iMessage outside of the US.
Who fucking cares about the color of a text message? Stop catering to childish trends. My god what the ever loving fuck is wrong with people?!
The subject of the conversation here is literally children.
You never had to exchange pictures or video between iPhone and android over messages then.
The color is only a small part of it. Blue bubble means they can exchange media with you without a huge quality sacrifice.
How embarrassing for you to admit that you cannot read.
Think about what you just said, and the environment you just said it in- put that into context, and then delete your comment in shame.
Can't you just change the color in the settings?
On a iPhone? Don't think there is such a setting.
This sounds promising. But given how much money there should be in this, their timidity is puzzling. Perhaps the solution is brittle or subject to legal or technical challenges. Just read between the lines on this. They’ve got the cure for cancer but there keeping it in animal testing for now…
The app is currently in beta and we’ve decided to keep availability more focused to ensure the best user experience at this time. Although we’re excited to be the first mobile company to introduce a blue bubble solution and we’d like to make it as widely available to Android enthusiasts as we can, we’re prioritizing delivering an optimal user experience before committing to expansion at this time.
when did SMS go out of style?
Probably when it was beaten in both features and cost by the alternatives.
More than decade ago when phones started to be capable to use Internet-based messaging standards, those that exists for computers for 30+ years.
I've been waiting for average users to catch up since about 2010 when I was running Pidgin (XMPP) on my Android, since SMS is terribly unreliable.
SMS is a best-effort protocol, with zero error checking, meaning no error correction, no ensured delivery. It's known to lose up to ten percent of messages.
It's also tightly bound to cellular architecture, since it encapsulates messages into the mostly-empty management frames of the cell network.
It was bleeding edge in 1986 (IIRC), but it's long past it's retirement time.
Because SMS are paid. I only use them because I am on a dumbphone and the plan is like $3 anyway.
Apple did it with iMessage so they can harvest data.
Google saw that and is now pushing for RCS to completely replace SMS because then they can harvest the data and sell ads and spam you ads with RCS and worse, they would control its backend so they would gatekeep everything about it.
They actually went so far as to forcibly enable RCS on my phone. While for now I can still disable it, I need to find an alternative to the default message app on android.
I had to check mine after your comment. They did it to me too. Every time they asked to turn it on I was adamant to refuse it. Has caused issues with messages not being sent or received before. With email that's fine but messages are meant to be instant.
Everytime this comes up...
RCS is not a Google product. Google Jibe is their RCS product and if carriers choose to use Jibe, then it's on them.
This is just removed. If you need those bubbles or whatever features Apple provides - just use an iPhone.
I am using Android and I have no issues with Apple users. 🙆
Lol really ? Who the fuck cares ? I think its just the stupid media hyping it all up, Over a color of a fucking msg? Man Losers born every minute. Smh
Didn't read the article, did ya?
Naa..its looked so useless so I just read the comments. Can someone tldr please ?