Introducing Nothing Chats
We’ve removed the Nothing Chats beta from the Play store and will be delaying the launch until further notice to work with Sunbird to fix several bugs. We apologize for the delay and will do right by our users.
Rob 
Thanks a ton! This is the right move and honestly the responsiveness to deciding this is very much appreciated, especially knowing how stressful this launch I’m sure was overall. Looking forward to the fix and hopefully improved security to address the overall concern of plain text access to user data and mitigating HTTP.
JDLC Exactly! You learn, you grow. Exciting to see Nothing being as proactive and reactive as possible in the same week. You don’t see that often. Owning up to the issues experienced, truly hearing us as community members/consumers, is absolutely awesome! Love to see it!
I really hope that you will be able to fix the app and provide a smooth and reliable experience. Keep pushing!
Rob No you removed from the play store because users complained messages were openly accessible to Sunbird to read, zero encryption & thus you took it down before you suffered a lawsuit by users because there private messages were able to be abused.
At least be honest about the reason for the take down.
Its not not a bug at all, it was a utterly ridiculous attitude towards us owners privacy to think we’d be ok to allow others to have access to our messages to others.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/18/23966781/nothing-chats-imessage-unencrypted-sunbird-plaintext
NHN Bugs are something we would expect on a Beta build, right?
It’s not the real reason to pull the app from Play Store.
Can we even trust Sunbird?
Do they just want to cover it up now?
Expected them to be more transparent about this matter.
I guess @Carl always gets unlucky with these software partnerships - first with Cyanogen OS and now with Sunbird.
Let’s see how they will handle this
It’s super common for software partners to come along and over promise and under deliver. That’s exactly what occurred here. Nothing put a lot of trust into Sunbird and ultimately Sunbird dropped the ball. Sunbird sold Nothing the idea of end-to-end encrypted iMessaging for Android. That wasn’t truly the case. Should Nothing have done a better job at vetting the software, possibly. However, how would they really know? How much did Sunbird let them see behind the scenes? A lot of questions that we most likely don’t get any answers to. Plus Nothing is still a relatively new company that is still actively hiring to build up their team. I’m sure Nothing threw as many of their resources at this as possible to get it right, but I’m also sure they still don’t have security teams focused on auditing third party software vendors for example, in addition to the many other resources who have integrated such third party software. Nothing will learn and grow from this. However, Sunbird has a lot of work ahead if they plan to successfully relaunch their app, let alone this Nothing Chats app. With Apple announcing RCS availability coming in 2024 though, I’m skeptical we see a refreshed launch of this app. I’m also guessing Sunbird’s relatively small in size as a company and just in one week the combination of above events probably pretty much crippled them. Was this a nice to have beta app/feature that many of us Phone (2) users were looking forward to trying, absolutely. However, it sounds like a lot of the RCS features we’re looking for will be solved in 2024, here soon enough.
Anonymous340 Nothing knew exactly what they were getting into, they were fully aware of the implications from day one, if you think they were that stupid to not know that then with respect that’s naivety.
Carl Pei knew the security issues, but he wanted the news flap around it to create gossip, no such thing as bad press, unfortunately.
This brands trust level is very tarnished tbh.
Not only are they not fixing major issues months since release, they are spending time on developing apps like this that compromise owners data, what in hell are they thinking, it’s absurd tbh.
Anonymous340 “trust but verify”. It was also negligence on the part of Nothing to not verify on their own rather than taking the word of Sunbird.
With what has unfolded, my opinion is that Nothing should take complete ownership of their chat client and develop it to work with SMS, MMS and RCS first. They should also have Sunbird figure their privacy/security issues out and then bolt on iMessage support later.
Derren great idea! Been a great idea since apps like beeper, sunbird and blue bubbles started doing it. Lol
NHN It’s clear that Nothing was excited for the hype of what this app could be / could have been, but I personally don’t believe Nothing truly knew the extent of how buggy and how bad the security was. Carl in the video announcement even states it’s end to end encrypted. Multiple people from the Nothing team continued to post on X (Twitter) in regards to the security noting the encryption/security. I think Carl/Nothing were under the impression Sunbird was more secure than it actually was just based on the rollout, language from Nothing, and the details on the Sunbird site. I can’t speak for Nothing or what actually occurred specifically though. Possibly Nothing will explain more in a detailed post or video but seeing how this played out, majority of this falls on Sunbird and I wouldn’t go as far to say the overall Nothing brands trust has been tarnished. It certainly is tarnished for Sunbird.
Hopefully Sunbird can resolve all of this but ultimately I just don’t see the point now with the latest news from Apple. RCS will be supported with iMessage, though the ‘green bubble’ RCS messages won’t be encrypted similarly to iMessage ‘blue bubbles’ and it doesn’t fully resolve the actual root of the blue bubble issue(s) here in the US at least especially. However, I’m not sure what motivates these apps like Sunbird or Beeper to stick around, or even how they financially support any further app development. Having a separate Nothing chat app is cool and all but most users will continue using WhatsApp, Google Messages, Signal/Telegram, etc. on their Nothing Phones. With very few adopting a new app that doesn’t necessarily provide anything net new other messaging apps don’t already provide. The net new here for the initial chats app was RCS and iMessage integration. Now that Apple will support RCS and the app unfortunately wasn’t a success, I don’t really see why Nothing would even try to resurrect this after everything that happened.
Riien If they were to relaunch, it would be best for Nothing to take full ownership at this rate and do it themselves / maybe a different partner altogether. However, I’m not sure what the motivation would be when most users were only looking to use this to message their friends/family on iMessage. Most will continue using Google Messages and wait for Apple to launch RCS in 2024, since many already use and enjoy using Google Messages. Others will continue using WhatsApp, Signal/Telegram, etc. unless Nothing were to offer something net new / exciting in Nothing Chats that isn’t offered anywhere else. Not quite sure what that would be though.
Midhun I hope we’ll see more info/details from Nothing soon on this, maybe even Carl directly. However I don’t think Sunbird is trust worthy nor do I expect Sunbird to be transparent here. Even their own website is misleading. Sunbird as an app shouldn’t even be allowed in the play store after this honestly. Too many security issues and while yes it’s in beta, the security issues alone damage their reputation completely. If Nothing were to relaunch this app with Sunbird, adoption will be incredibly low. I believe for many the trust with Sunbird is gone entirely. However, if Nothing still wants to move forward with their own chats app partnering with someone else or bringing it in-house, while being fully transparent as to what occurred here, what mistakes they learned from etc.. Adoption may be better, especially if the app is a success and users continue to recommend it and ultimately trust it. Though as noted in my other replies, I’m not sure there’s much of a reason to continue forward with their own chat app now.
Riien Tbh, I truly believe they already knew there were privacy issues, let’s be honest in this sphere brands that sell on this level, do not have a take a word for it mindset & even if that was believable of which I do not, what does that show Nothing to be, seriously naïve or just so thirsty to be the big thing of the moment, they ignored huge security concerns of there users, that is just wrong & tbh it’s the same mindset towards users as the previous brand he headed, he needs a bit of a wake up call tbh.
Instead of messing around with apps like this, he should be fixing the issues with the products that actually have on the market that so far 4 months later still don’t have a fix.
Anonymous340 The app, imho is & was a complete waste of time, the relaying method for iMessage was doomed to fail as apple would have made changes to block this usability in some shape or form & I for one don’t need another chat app, it’s just an ego app for nothing & tbh it serves zero purpose overall but to Nothing owners, WhatsApp does everything we all need as does iMessage.
Fix the hardware then worry about side apps like this, I prefer a fully working touchscreen to this tomfoolery.
Anonymous340 Back in the day I used to use a desktop software ICQ iirc to use all my chat apps like aol, MSN, etc, which today the equivalent is Beeper, I truly see this as a a good idea as all these messaging apps it’s bit cluttered, so if it was that secure & still held all messages in the residing apps still to view should beeper disappear, then I see that as a viable existence as it houses all within the same app, whereas this app apart from privacy problems has zero benefits overall, they’re different tbh, Beeper is a sound idea but is it secure, that’s the question.
Rob Smart move Rob, I found the iMessage works well, bit of a delay, but nothing serious. Few privacy concerns about the end-to-end encyption, but I have no doubt this will be rectified. Couldn’t get RCS working because of the issues on Sunbird’s side. The transparency with the community is a staple pillar of why I am a fan of the company, and that you strive for quality over a product rollout that may be futher refinement then expected.
Looking forward to the future updates 
Anonymous340 No, the responsibility for this fiasco rests on Nothing, esp it’s experienced founder.
Nothing had far more at stake, esp being a new brand, & it should have done far more due diligence.
Just pinning the responsibility on Sunbird for claiming something reflects deeply on the naivety of Nothing.
Like it or not the reputation of N HAS been tarnished.
A good fallout of this entire episode would be for N to stop trying flashy things & buckle down to iron out the shortcomings/bugs in NP 2 & NP1 of which the community posts are full of.
N’s reputation as a company will rest on how good their phones are & not on accessories like beer/clothing/CMF etc.
Us owners/community members need to be supportive of GENUINE efforts at improving the phones, not by cheering wildly everything they do & glossing over goof ups but by being objective & clear eyed of what they’re upto.
As a senior I would advise them to now sincerely make efforts to improve the phones.
The rest can wait.