- Nothing Chats launched in beta last week.
- The app has already been removed from the Google Play Store due to ‘several bugs’.
- However, reports say the app actually has privacy issues.
Nothing Chats launched last week as an app for Android users to chat with iMessage users. Soon after Apple confirmed it will bring RCS to iPhones, which sort of made the Nothing Chats app useless. Carl Pei justified it by saying that RCS support still doesn’t solve the “blue bubble vs green bubble debate.” It looks like the app is already off to a bad start as it has been removed from the Play Store.
Nothing Chats app removed from Google Play Store
Nothing posted on X (Twitter) saying that the Nothing Chats app has been removed from the Play Store. While it didn’t clarify, Nothing said the app removal was due to “several bugs” that it has to fix. What’s also interesting is the “reader’s context” added to the post that explain what exactly the reason might be for Nothing Chats getting removed from the Play Store.
“Contrary to Nothing’s claim about fixing ‘bugs’ in their upcoming app, these issues are serious security & privacy lapses. Falsely advertised as end-to-end encrypted, exposes user data in plain text. The app was pulled for major fixes due to unencrypted user images & data,” the note reads.
The reader’s context note also includes articles from reliable publications that talk about the app’s lack of encryption, and privacy issues. According to a report by The Verge, Sunbird, the platform the app’s based on, actually has access to all messages sent by users. So the messages aren’t end-to-end encrypted as opposed to what Nothing had declared.
Nothing is yet to confirm when the app will be back in the Play Store. It’s also in beta right now so the stable version hasn’t been released yet. As for its availability, Nothing Chats has been launched only for Phone (2) users the US, Canada, UK and EU. It plans on expanding the app’s availability to more countries. But Nothing will have to fix the privacy issues before going ahead with the app’s release.
