Sunbird is temporarily discontinuing its iMessage app for Android after security concerns

Sunbird is discontinuing its app, which offers iMessage on Android phones, ‘for now’. The company behind the service is investigating reports that messages via the app are not end-to-end encrypted. Sunbird forms the basis of Nothing Chats, which was taken offline this weekend.

Sunbird confirms the discontinuation of its service via a push notification from its own Android app, like this noted 9to5Google. The app now displays a notification stating that the company has decided to pause the chat service ‘for now’ due to the security concerns. Sunbird indicates that it will provide an update on the situation later. Previously, the service only stopped the ability to share media. The company behind the service has not yet publicly responded to the messages, apart from the push notifications to users.

The temporary stop of Sunbird’s service follows messages from, among others, Texts.blog, that concluded that messages on the service are not end-to-end encrypted. Android developer Dylan Roussel said the same. He also discovered that the service stores users’ media through Google’s Firebase cloud storage service. Sunbird claimed that messages and media would be end-to-end encrypted.

Sunbird was introduced in 2022. That service offers support for chat messages between iMessage and Android users, including blue bubbles. The chat service previously shared few concrete details about how this is achieved.

In an interview with Fast Company Sunbird CEO Danny Mizrahi said earlier this year that the company uses clusters of Macs with iMessage installed. Users can log in via the app with their Apple ID. The Macs in question receive the messages from users and then forward them to the iMessage recipient. The company suggests that a separate Mac is not necessary for every user, but does not share any concrete details. So Sunbird claimed that the messages are end-to-end encrypted and not stored on its servers, but did not say how that worked.

Last week, smartphone manufacturer Nothing introduced its own chat service called Nothing Chats. That service was supposed to make it possible for Phone (2) users to use iMessage. The manufacturer used Sunbird as the basis for this app, which could be downloaded as a beta. Nothing also claimed that messages via the chat service are provided with end-to-end encryption. The company temporarily removed the app from the Play Store last weekend.