Sunbird, the app that brings iMessage to Android, has briefly shut down the service over “safety issues,” as first reported by 9to5Google. In a discover to customers, Sunbird says it has “determined to pause Sunbird utilization for now” whereas it investigates experiences that its messages aren’t truly end-to-end encrypted.

Sunbird launched in 2022 as a messaging app that makes an attempt to place the blue versus inexperienced bubble battle to relaxation. It has solely been obtainable to those that join for its waitlist, touting quite a few privacy features, like end-to-end encryption, no message knowledge assortment, and no adverts.

At the time, Nothing mentioned it needed to repair “a number of bugs” throughout the app. However, its removing from the Play Store got here across the identical time a post from Texts.blog revealed that messages despatched through Sunbird is probably not end-to-end encrypted. Android developer Dylan Roussel got here to related conclusions and in addition discovered Sunbird shops hundreds of media information on the cloud service Firebase. That means Sunbird’s claims that it doesn’t retailer knowledge on its personal servers are solely partially true, as the corporate seems to be simply delivery the data off externally.

Sunbird nonetheless hasn’t commented on the app’s shutdown, however its message to customers says, “We will replace you once we are able to proceed.” As identified by 9to5Google, the app is not listed on the Google Play Store although it was obtainable to obtain final month, per an archived version of the page.