We all know that Apple had considered bringing iMessage over to Android at some point, but then quickly realized that it is one of the services that has locked millions upon millions of users to the iPhone and decided against it. I’d be shocked if Apple ever brought it to Android at this point.

That leaves 3rd party services to continue to try and bring iMessage to Android in secure ways that you can trust and that Apple won’t immediately shutdown. You remember Beeper, right? Well, we now have Sunbird, a familiar name in the iMessage to Android space that has brought its messaging app to Google Play for you to test out, assuming you trust it.

If the name “Sunbird” doesn’t ring a bell, maybe the tech company Nothing does. Yes, that Nothing, the one owned by Carl Pei. Sunbird partnered with Nothing back in 2023 to bring iMessage to Android through an app called Nothing Chats. The app launched to Google Play in beta and was so insecure and threw so many red flags, that it was pulled within 24 hours by Nothing, only to never be mentioned again. They promised to fix bugs and revisit, but they really did just let it disappear into the ether.

So now Sunbird is going public on its own, without Nothing along for the ride. Their Sunbird messaging app is indeed on Google Play now and it is promising secure iMessage on Android, with blue bubbles and everything.

Their website is pretty lean on how this whole situation works and what they are doing behind-the-scenes to connect to Apple servers in order to trick them into thinking your Android phone is sending as an iPhone. They claim they don’t store any messages, that you only need to login with your Apple ID once, and that nothing is left behind if you delete your account.