We have written about it several times on Italian Tech in 2022 (here for example) is during 2023that the Nothing Phone is among telephones most interesting on the Android scenecapable of innovating in a sector where there is now little innovation.
Now this innovation also comes from a road that seemed impassable: Bringing iMessage, the iOS and iPhone exclusive messaging app, to Android.
Chat WhatsApp aims at the American market, which in 2022 is still the kingdom of Emanuele Capone’s text messages 30 January 2022
twitter: Carl Pei’s tweet about iMessage
Come si usa iMessage sul Nothing Phone 2
The app to do this arrives in a couple of days, although it will initially only be available for the Phone 2: it’s called Nothing Chats and it relies on Sunbird to worka platform created specifically to integrate the various messaging services.
From November 17th is available in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and European Union countries and it works like this: you download it from the Play Store, install it and upon first login you can log in with your Apple ID or create a new account. From that moment you can write to other iPhones and be recognized as an iPhone: messages will be colored blue, even if they originate from an Android phone.
There’s some work behind the scenes, obviously: to trick the system, conversation management starts from Phone 2, is rerouted to one of the Mac Minis which are located in Nothing’s offices in the USA or Europe and then forwarded to the iPhone to which it was directed. Switch from an Apple device, and it couldn’t be otherwise.
The credentials of those who use the app they are therefore stored on these computers, which is potentially a big security problem: at Nothing they pointed out that the messages are end-to-end encrypted and are not visible either to company staff or to those of Sunbird, who still retain the email linked to your Apple ID who uses the service, as long as the service remains active (if it is deactivated, the email should be “permanently deleted within two weeks”). The fact remains that the person’s Apple ID is stored on a computer over which that person has no control, and this could (understandably) raise some doubts and distance many from this possibility.
Why is Nothing bringing iMessage to Android?
The company co-founded by Carl Pei (photo above) he decided to do this thing mainly for two reasons: one economic and one, so to speak, social justice. Both are connected to the particular situation of the North American smartphone market.
In the US, Apple basically has 50% penetration, which is huge and one that the company (no company, to be honest) doesn’t achieve anywhere else in the world. Moreover: according to data reported by Axios (Who), 87% of American teenagers have an iPhone. Does this thing happen? Nearly 9 in 10 Americans ages 13 to 19 use iPhones as a personal telephone. And given that Apple, like Google and Samsung (but perhaps even more than Google and Samsung), tries as much as possible to keep users tied to its services and to harness them to these services so that they find them indispensable and never leave them, it is highly likely that when these guys they will become adults and will continue to use iPhone.
This is why for any manufacturer it is very, very difficult to enter the enormous and attractive American market: Apple dominates it, and dominates it in a way that is difficult to scratch. Here the other motivation comes into play: not only do today’s American kids, who will be tomorrow’s consumers, use iPhones, but they also don’t look favorably on those who don’t use iPhones. And they tend to exclude these people from their lives (it is well known Green Bubble problemwhich we wrote about in 2022). This means that if you are a young American and you want to have a social life, be included in group chats with classmates, participate in calls on Face Time or in general have others respond to you, you must have an iPhone, use iMessage and send blue messages. Or, now, use a Nothing Phone 2 that pretends to be an iPhone.
WWDC 2023 The mixed reality viewer and other Apple news told live from Cupertino by our correspondent Bruno Ruffilli 05 June 2023
What will Apple do?
This is the question everyone would like an answer to, including Carl Pei, who announced the new functionality of his phones he even tagged Tim Cook. There are two possible answers, which are not mutually exclusive.
Given that Apple is Applewill probably get very angry about this thing, which risks nibbling away at a bit of its share of the American market and above all opens up a small crack in the walled garden (things?) that he is building.
And yet, given that Apple is Apple and its executives aren’t stupid and don’t act on impulse, it’s the same It’s likely that the company doesn’t want to ask for the app to be removed from the Play Store, concretely demonstrating to the American authorities that in the messaging sector it operates in a regime that seems like a monopoly and yet wants to defend it at all costs.
What will happen then? According to many analysts, the Cupertino company will not do anything aggressive and instead will perhaps point out to customers that it is not exactly a good idea to entrust your Apple ID to the servers of a company over which you have little or no control. He will point that out Inside the Apple ecosystem you feel good and safewhich she is very good at doing.
@capoema