Nothing Chats removed from Play Store over security concerns

Last week, Nothing announced Nothing Chats. This is a new messaging app by the company that would solve the green-bubble-blue-bubble issue by allowing iMessage users to send rich text messages to Android users.

Unfortunately, it looks like the app has since been pulled from the Play Store over certain security and privacy concerns.

We've removed the Nothing Chats beta from the Play Store and will be delaying the launch until further notice to work with Sunbird to fix several bugs.

We apologise for the delay and will do right by our users.

— Nothing (@nothing) November 18, 2023

When the app was launched, while the concept seemed like a good one, many were quick to point out the potential security issues involved. It was later discovered that the app isn’t really end-to-end encrypted as they claimed, and that user data is exposed in plain text which would have allowed attackers to read the data pretty easily.

To be fair, the app was launched in beta and bugs are to be expected, but perhaps Nothing should have done a better job at QC-ing the app before publishing it. Many users are now blasting the company for calling these pretty serious security and privacy flaws as mere “bugs”.

That being said, it should be noted that shortly after Nothing’s app was launched, Apple themselves came forward and announced that in 2024, they will finally introduce support for RCS, so we’re not sure how relevant the Nothing Chats app will remain once that starts rolling out with presumably more attention paid towards the overall security and privacy of the service.