It was just one week ago that Nothing — the company behind a couple of midrange Android smartphones andsome admittedly stylish wireless earbuds— announced its biggest swing yet. Nothing Chats wasmeant to be a new messaging platformexclusive toNothing Phone 2users built on the back of an app called Sunbird. Thanks to some truly terrifying security holes, however, Nothing pulled the app from the Play Store less than 24 hours after its launch. The fallout isn’t over, however, as Sunbird’s own service is also disappearing — at least, for a while.
Sunbird, for the uninitiated, was a tool built to allow Android users to send messages over iMessage using remote Mac servers. It first launched around this time last year, complete with a wait list that never seemed to get smaller. Despite the promise of a full-scale rollout in 2023, the app’s availability never actually expanded. While services like Beeper continue to grow in popularity — alongside apps like AirMessage that allow you to control your own server — Sunbird pivoted to its partnership with Nothing.
Well, it seems like the app’s limited access proved particularly beneficial to its reputation. Expanding to Nothing users — and, of course, the Carl Pei-focused publicity tour that paired with the announcement — brought more attention than ever to Sunbird. So when Nothing Chats was found to havemassive security problems over the weekend, right down tostoring messages in plain textand lying about its encryption status, it was only a matter of time before everyone turned their eyes to the platform powering it.
As reported by9to5Google, Sunbird itself has also, effectively, shut down for the time being. Initial reportsshared by Reddit userssuggested the servicewould just pausemediasharing, presumably because photos and documents sent over the app were easily accessible by, well, pretty much anyone with a little know-how. Hours later, Sunbird announced a full hiatus on the platform, before the app eventually disappeared from the Play Store entirely.
It’s unclear if Sunbird will ever return, but considering the dire state Nothing Chats ended up in — which included getting stung with aCommunity Notes-sourced clarification— I wouldn’t put money on it. Sunbird had a relatively quiet year following its launch in 2022, thanks in part to its inability to expand beyond a select group of, for lack of a better phrase, alpha testers. But as AP alum Ron Amadeo noted at ArsTechnica, a press conference held nearly a year ago for the application proved to be a huge red flag for the company. Sunbird specifically disabled Zoom chat during the call, while only answering pre-approved questions that failed to dig into anything technical.
At least for the time being, this is, presumably, the end of this story for both Nothing and Sunbird. A week-long saga that may end up leaving Sunbird for dead and, at best, serve as a major embarrassment for Nothing. I’m curious to see where the phonemaker goes from here, though. This is, without a doubt, abadlook for a small, upstart brand, and considering the success of future Nothing devices rides on the ability for more technical users to recommend the brand, it’s going to need to prove it takes this sort of thing seriously.
