Would not say this implementation is a step in the right direction at all. They’re logging into your Apple account through a Mac Mini.
this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2023
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If you want blue bubbles so much, use Signal.
Or green bubbles, or red bubbles, pink bubbles, multicoloured bubbles
I currently use purple bubbles hee hee
How far would you go to conform for something as mundane as chat bubble colors? How soulless will your life have to be to demand something like this?
It's not about the bubbles. It's the group chats, encryption, media size, and other rich chat features.
All these features you get much better using actual E2E-encrypted chat apps like Signal or WhatsApp like the rest of the world.
The problem is getting other people to also use those apps :(
This is true.
But also, 99% of the population is not technical enough to download such apps and use them. They will only use the default apps that came with their phone, whatever outdated protocol they happen to be utilizing. Why else do you think Facebook, for example, pays manufacturers to preload their crapware on new handsets? And even more to make it as difficult to remove as possible.
WhatsApp does not come pre-installed on most phones (for some reason it often isn't included even with Facebook's crapware). It is still the de facto chat app in India, Brazil and dozens of other Asian, South American and European countries.
As far as I know, SMS in India and Brazil is not free. This means that for majority of users switching to a data-based app is not so much as a choice, but a necessity. In the US texting via SMS has been free for several decades, so there's no reason for people to look for an alternative.
SMS has been free in India since 2016. Though one could say WhatsApp had already become dominant by then, so it stuck.
Exactly. It has reached critical mass to a point where if you're not on it, you're basically not communicating.
Also, I remember that cross-carrier calling was an issue, which is why most people would need to use dual-SIM phones. Not sure if it's the same for SMS.
Yea this is fucking wild and pathetic.
I have absolutely zero confidence that Apple will allow this to exist once they get enough wind of it.
But what are they going to do about it?
Blue bubbles? I'm sorry, I don't speak American.
I posted this in another technology fediverse but think it is relevant here also:
Ars Technica covered this much better
Basically, the company providing the service is shady and should not be trusted.
Given how aggressive Apple is in protecting their walled garden, I don't expect this to survive the litigation. Apple tends to ignore individual hackers (look at hackintoshes) but businesses making money off unauthorized use of their APIs don't last very long before the tidal wave of lawyers come.
Maybe, but seeing the recent scrutiny they have had for not allowing sideloading of apps, killing this might actually push legislation against it. As an android user, I wouldn't use this app even if I had access to it because it's not secure and because I don't give a shit about blue bubbles.
Maybe in the EU, but I would have little hope for the US market. The US has been astonishingly slow to take adverse action against companies within their own borders for the past 25 years. Believe me, I hope Apple and Google get what is coming to them, but I won't hold my breath.
The company behind the feature Nothing is advertising, Sunbird, claims that their solution preserves iMessage's end-to-end encryption. They also claim they have figured out how to handle thousands of accounts on a single Mac. Both problems Beeper hasn't been able to solve.
Unfortunately they have failed to provide any details about how they accomplish these things, which has Ars Technica feeling pretty skeptical about the whole endeavor.
You are logging with your apple ID into a Mac mini in a server farm somewhere in the world, and it acts as a relay to send you your imessages over their closed source app, that does not mean secure to me at all, even MKBHD was a little iffy about the security of this service.
This makes me roll my eyes. From the Sunbird faq:
Will the app [sunbird] be open source?
Some of the messaging community believes that software that is open source is more secure. It is our view that it is not. The more visibility there is into the infrastructure and code, the easier it is to penetrate it. By design, open source software is distributed in nature. There is no central authority to ensure quality and maintenance and by putting that responsibility on Sunbird, development would not be feasible. Open source vulnerabilities typically stem from poorly written code that leave gaps, which attackers can use to carryout malicious activities.
To help satisfy our own ambitious goals of providing total privacy and security, we are currently undergoing a third party audit that will validate our security, encryption and data policies and plan on receiving ISO 27001 certification after launch.
Sure Jan.
edit: source: https://www.sunbirdapp.com/ at the bottom
The reddest of red flags.
Open source vulnerabilities typically stem from poorly written code
Yeah, because paid programmers never write bad closed-source code…
I wonder how long they've been working on this integration and i bet they didn't see this coming: Apple says iPhones will support RCS in 2024 . I mean it's technically not the same product. RCS will replace sms/mms and "Nothing Chats" is an iMessage back door (?).
I think it's innovative if it works well
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