14 DAY TRIAL // Apple’s obsession with keeping everything iPhone exclusive makes it impossible to use services such as iMessage on anything else but Cupertino’s own devices.
But thanks to a cleverly-designed third-party application, you could actually chat with your contacts on iMessage even if you have an Android phone. That might sound like blasphemy for the typical Apple fanboy, but PieMessage is an application that can do that as long as you have a Mac.
As Eric Chee, the developer of the app explains, this project “is a super alpha prototype,” and while it works fine right now, it could always be blocked by Apple. It’s not a secret that the company isn’t the biggest fan of such tweaks and they’re usually short-lived.
Having iMessage on an Android device implies setting up the OS X machine to act as a central hub that automatically routes messages to your phone. The project description published on GitHub explains how the app works down to every little detail.
Windows and Windows Phone versions also possible
For tech-savvy users, this is what it all comes down to:
“The Android client connects to a socket that whose IP address is of the OSX device that is running the JWS (Java Web Server) and OSX Client. It then sends JSON messages to the JWS using that socket. It also receives JSON to show in list of any new incoming iMessages.”
According to the developer who created the app, there’s more to come if Apple doesn’t ban it, including group messaging and photo and video messaging. Right now, sending group messages is not possible, and you can only receive what others are writing to you.
And what’s more important, more clients can be created for a wide variety of platforms, including Windows and Windows Phone. The only thing you need is the Mac OS X computer that routes messages to your device and obviously the app that can display them for you.
