Nothing is set to be the pioneer smartphone manufacturer to enable Apple’s iMessage system on its Nothing Phone 2. The Nothing Chats app reportedly operates through the third-party Sunbird, which allegedly gains access to users’ iCloud accounts. While Nothing claims that messages won’t be stored, experts advise caution regarding data privacy.
According to Nothing, Sunbird’s architecture prevents the storage of messages at any point. FAQs state that Sunbird doesn’t store messages on its servers. However, The Verge reported that users might still have to grant Sunbird access to iCloud.
YouTuber Marques Brownlee stated that Nothing confirmed the service would only work once logged in on a Mac Mini in a server farm. Jane Nho from Nothing explained that Sunbird stores login details as encrypted tokens linked to relay Mac Minis. Allegedly, inactive accounts are deleted after two weeks.
Despite this, experts, as per The Verge, consider entrusting third parties with iCloud access risky. The Washington Post tested Nothing Chats and found it mostly functional. However, new iMessage features such as editing sent messages and Tapback reactions didn’t work entirely.
In group chats, The Washington Post testers sometimes had to resend messages. Nothing Chats cannot handle group iMessages with non-iPhone users, but reportedly supports group SMS.
At present, Sunbird is exclusive to Nothing Phone users. Whether Apple will take action against this is yet to be clarified.
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