Sunbird has been a controversial app since the very beginning, to say the least. The company developed an app that allows Android users to send messages to their iOS counterparts on iMessages. For the uninitiated, iMessage is an Apple-exclusive text messaging app, famous for its blue text bubbles. Sunbird has time and again tried to make it accessible for Android customers too and now it even collaborates with Nothing as well.
Now, Sunbird has announced that it is shutting down its messaging app. And why is that? Let’s find out.
Sunbird has informed that it is shutting down its messaging app owing to privacy concerns, according to a first report by 9to5Google. The company shared a notice for users which shared the information of them putting a pause on the messaging app for now. There have been plenty of reports claiming that Sunbird’s messaging platform is not end-to-end encrypted. The pause has been made so that the company can investigate these concerns.
Also read: Is Nothing Chats safe for Android and Apple users? Know here
If you recall, just recently, Nothing had pulled down Nothing Chats from the Google Play Store. Nothing and Sunbird had collaborated on Nothing Chats. Nothing Chats allowed Nothing Phone 2 users to send messages on iMessage. However, just a day after its launch, the beta version was pulled down. Nothing said that they did so to fix certain “bugs” but industry insiders pointed out that it was due to privacy concerns associated with Sunbird.
Sunbird had previously also claimed that it doesn’t store any data on its personal servers, but many observers have pointed out that this could only be partially true. On its cloud service Firebase, Sunbird stores thousands of media files.
Also read: Nothing decides to bring its own iMessage: Will Apple stay ‘Muted’?
Sunbird was exclusively available to those who signed up for the waitlist. Sunbird promoted privacy features, like end-to-end encryption, no message data collection, and no ads on its messaging app.
