iMessage-like Nothing Chats app announced for Android users, but does it help?

Nothing on Tuesday announced its proprietary messaging app called Nothing Chats. Nothing Chats is a platform for Android that aims at killing the blue bubble and green bubble debates. The company CEO Carl Pei himself has addressed Apple’s popular messaging app, iMessage, and said that they have ‘made iMessage for Android’.

For the uninitiated, iMessage is a big problem for Android tech companies in the US. That’s because most users rely on iMessage and hence use iPhones. The reason for the same is the special features that iMessage offers like typing indicators, voice notes, read receipts, and others. Also, iMessage is considered private and secure.

Blue bubbles on Phone (2).

Introducing Nothing Chats. A new messaging solution for Android.

Coming soon. pic.twitter.com/5PLl7ByLFm

— Nothing (@nothing) November 14, 2023

Now, with the Nothing Chats app, the company wants to address this issue and bring in all major iMessage features to Android. So that iPhone users who rely on iMessage may not have the FOMO when switching to Android.

Nothing Chats app has the following features.

— Single messaging

— Group chats

— Live typing indicators

— Full-res media sharing

— Voice notes

— Read receipts – coming soon

— Message reactions & replies – coming soon

Out of these the most important features of the Nothing Chats app are arguably the live typing indicators and sharing full-res media. Also, Pei has confirmed that the app has privacy and security like iMessage.

He revealed that all the data on the Nothing Chats app stays on the device and is not saved on servers. Furthermore, the app shows all the sent messages in blue color, which is similar to iMessage.

Nothing Chats will be available to Phone 2 users from Friday (November 17) in North America, the EU, and other European regions.

Call it an iMessage rip-off or a clone, but this move by Nothing is surely a bold one. Pei also expects Apple’s CEO Tim Cook to notice this feature and adopt RCS (Rich Communication Services) on iOS.

Let's end the green bubble stigma!@tim_cook please consider adopting RCS for security and interoperability 🙏 https://t.co/imTMZNCbLq

— Carl Pei (@getpeid) November 14, 2023

RCS, for the unversed, allows advanced messaging with the help of the Internet. Basically, a supercharged version of SMS, which Google has adopted with the help of its Google Messages app.

If Apple adopts RCS, the messaging boundary between Android and iOS will end, which will be a major advantage for Android phone makers. However, Apple doesn’t seem to be caring as its iMessage is one of the reasons why people own an iPhone in the aforesaid regions. As said it’s fast, private, and feature-rich.

Do you use iMessage on iPhone or use third-party apps like WhatsApp? Do let us know.