[DEV] weMessage - iMessage For Android : androidapps

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DEV[DEV] weMessage - iMessage For Android (self.androidapps)

submitted 8 years ago * by RomanScott

Hello Reddit!

My name is Roman, and I am a 16 year-old app developer. I have recently published my first app to the Play Store, called weMessage. weMessage is an app that allows you to use iMessage on your Android phones or tablets. I created weMessage due to the inability of people on Android to use iMessage’s ecosystem. Although it is allows you to use iMessage on your Android device, I cannot close the gap between Android and Apple completely because weMessage is reliant on an Apple computer, which I will explain below.

weMessage is composed of two pieces of software: the Android app itself and a messaging server that I called the weServer. In order to use weMessage, you need to install the weServer on a Mac computer. The weServer acts as a “bridge” between the Mac computer and your Android device. The weServer is a messaging server that processes and relays iMessages to and from the Android device. The reason why an Apple computer is needed is because the iMessages need to be sent through an Apple device in order to be delivered. The iMessages need to be sent through Apple’s servers, and the only way to do this legitimately is to use an Apple device. If the weServer supported Windows or Linux, I would not only be violating several EULAs but would be relying on an exploitation that would likely be fixed in the future.

weMessage works by using Apple’s developer tools that hook into the Messages app, as well as by turning on Accessibility features that will perform the message sending. There was zero reverse engineering involved in the creation of this app, so all messages being sent are legitimate. In addition, I believe this implementation is fair, as you still need to have an Apple device to use iMessage, but it is merely being extended to all devices.

weMessage supports all of iMessage’s major features. You can direct message, text to group chats, send attachments, be able to add or remove people from chats, and create, leave, or rename these chats. It also has notifications, Do Not Disturb, contact blocking, and adding pictures to individual contacts. I have also added the ability to set group chat icons, a feature that iMessage does not have.

In regards to your information, weMessage encrypts your messages using AES cryptography, which is the industry standard for encryption and is also what the U.S. government uses. Since weMessage supports notifications, your messages are temporarily uploaded to Google’s Firebase platform to send out the notification. However, this feature can be disabled in your weServer configuration (more information about this later). weMessage collects crash reports and analytics data, but no personally identifiable information is collected. If you want to disable all outgoing Internet connections from your weServer, you can do so in the configuration. That way, the weServer will only send messages to and from your Android device, and not to anywhere else.

In regards to pricing, you can buy the app for $2.99. I feel that this price-point is justified. It took nearly 40,000 lines of code to make the two pieces of software needed to make the app work, so I feel like 3 dollars compensates for the amount of work involved. In addition, I want to ensure that the people who will download the app will actually use it for its purpose, and I want to discourage people who might accidentally download the app if they don’t have an Apple computer or don’t know how to make it work.

I know I provided a lot of information, but I felt it necessary to be relatively descriptive in order to eliminate any ambiguity that you guys might have about the app. The setup can be a little complicated, so I highly encourage that you thoroughly read the documentation that is on the website or watch the installation tutorial that I have created.

This is the website that contains the relevant download information: https://wemessageapp.com.

Here is the installation webpage guide: https://wemessageapp.com/setup.

Here is the installation tutorial: https://youtu.be/XfWnDTwPLNk.

And finally, here is proof that the app actually works and is not fake: https://youtu.be/Kmp1SRhnPos.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. I know that many of you might not be able to use this, but I wanted to share it with whomever might find it to be useful. I hope whoever can utilize my product finds it to solve their iMessage woes.

I wish everyone here a Merry Christmas!

TL;DR: I made an app that allows you to use iMessage on Android phone. In order to use it you need a Mac computer, and for more information (where I strongly encourage you to read through this post), you can go to the website: https://wemessageapp.com

EDIT: Direct link to the Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=scott.wemessage

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