Sunbird suspends iMessage for Android service for a short time
Sunbird, an app that hopes to provide iMessage to Android users, has paused development and removed its app from the Play Store due to security concerns highlighted this week.
The firm sent a message to its customers earlier this week, as originally reported by 9to5Google, stating that it is stopping development of the app to examine security concerns.
“We have temporarily disabled the Sunbird app while we conduct a thorough security audit.” “We will return to the community as soon as we are aware of the exact occurrences and our plan to mitigate them in the future,” the firm announced on November 19 on its Discord.
Several users on the Sunbird subreddit reported receiving a message from the corporation announcing the app’s demise.
“We have been working on the app around the clock to address the concerns raised and improve the experience.” We were unable to convey a message sooner due to the press and partner responsibilities. “There’s still a lot going on, and we’re committed to Sunbird’s success,” the firm stated in a post on Discord on Tuesday.
According to Crunchbase records, Sunbird messaging was started in 2021 and has received a total of $2.9 million in investment. Last December, the startup debuted its app in a private beta program.
Nothing, a firm founded by OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei, revealed earlier this month that it will use Sunbird’s technology to deliver iMessage to Android via Nothing Chats.
However, following the release, many researchers pointed out security problems in the app, including messages being transferred in plain text, as detailed in a Texts.com blog post.
Other security experts, like as researcher Dylan Roussel, have also stated that all communications and media exchanged via Nothing Chats and Sunbird are public.
Nothing responded by removing the Nothing Chats beta from the Play Store and said that it would work with Sunbird to “fix several bugs.”
Many message aggregator programs have attempted to tackle the blue bubble/green bubble split. Texts.com, which was purchased by WordPress.com owner Automattic last month for $50 million, provides iMessage on Mac and SMS with iMessage. Pebble creator Eric Migicovsky’s Beeper also has some iMessage connectivity. However, concerns have been raised concerning the privacy and security implications of these solutions.
All of this comes on the heels of Apple’s announcement last week that the business will embrace RCS (Rich Communication Standards) — a more powerful alternative to SMS that allows sending multimedia messages with additional capabilities — next year.
