“Nothing Chats, powered by Sunbird, allows you to directly message other phone users from your Nothing phone via blue bubbles.”

I don’t think this solves the problem, but it is a step in the right direction.

  • This would not be a problem, but Apple purposefully and maliciously degrades the messaging experience by compressing the shit out of any MMS sent to (or received from) non-apple devices. Even non-multimedia stuff like group chats or reactions are being broken. On purpose. To piss you off just enough to maybe consider switching to their closed proprietary ecosystem.

    It may not work on you and me, but you’d be surprised how effective it is on young impressionable teens who are under extreme peer pressure by their stupid “friends” who are shallow enough to care about the chat bubble colors. My 16 y/o son was quite happy with his Pixel 5a, but was literally bullied into switching to an iphone. He spent a decent chunk of his summer job’s earnings to buy a used 12 mini and a replacement battery for it. Now he can’t sideload apps, or rearrange his home screen, or a myriad of other things that he’s gotten used to on Android, but at least his bubbles are the “right” color.