Nothing Chat will be powered by Sunbird, an app developer that has claimed to be able to send iMessage chats for about a year now, with no public launch. According to a Washington Post article with quotes from the CEOs of Nothing and Sunbird, Nothing will "start" rolling out "an early version" of Nothing Chats with iMessage compatibility on Friday. The only catch, supposedly, is that you'll need a Nothing Phone 2.
The many red flags of Sunbird
Sunbird has claimed to be able to send iMessages on Android for a long time, has missed its deadline for launch, and generally doesn't come off as a serious company. The company announced itself to the world with the promise of iMessage on Android during a press briefing in December 2022. I attended this meeting and did not write about it because Sunbird's suspect presentation did not meet my standards for a story. To me, the purpose of a press meeting like this would be to overcome the skepticism about the claim that you could imperviously, permanently hack into iMessage. Being honest with the press would have helped, but Sunbird refused to take open questions in its big debut. Sunbird's PR person approved and asked all the questions, the Zoom chat was turned off, and the company didn't answer a single one of the basic technical questions.
Account security and Open-source alternative
"Beeper" is an open source app that connects to iMessage by forwarding your iMessage through a Mac (there are a few services like this already). Beeper will let you host this yourself on your own Mac or you can do it via a Mac in Beeper's data center. It's fair to raise your security concerns with Beeper's use of an Apple ID, but Beeper is a great example of how to do things in a way that doesn't feel like a phishing scam. There's a clear explanation of how it works: iMessage - Getting Started Guide | Beeper

Nothing Phone says it will hack into iMessage, bring blue bubbles to Android
Upstart Android OEM hopes Apple won’t immediately shut the project down.
