Minimal Phone 2 lets you break free from iPhone but still keep iMessage
In an era where social media seems to be doing more harm than good, the Minimal Phone 2 seems like a really good idea. Billed as a distraction-free device, it’s a mobile phone with a physical keyboard that offers no social media access and only basic apps, including the ability to send and receive messages.
However, it’s still an Android phone, so when you send a chat message from the Minimal Phone 2, it naturally appears in a green bubble on an iPhone. As silly as it sounds, there’s a stigma that some iPhone users attach to Android phone users because iOS displays chat messages from Android phones as green bubbles instead of blue ones, the telltale indication that a message came from an Apple device.
There’s a fix for that, though, in case you’re worried about being a social outcast by your iPhone buddies. Andre Youkhna, the founder of The Minimal Company, points out that the Minimal Phone 2 can run OpenBubbles, which means messages for the phone appear as blue bubbles on iPhones. It even has a blue blinking indicator light on the front to let you know when one arrives.
OpenBubbles is an app that basically spoofs a Mac or iPhone that you can access, so that an Android phone can access Apple’s Messages, FaceTime, and iCloud Shared Albums (though it’s not clear if the latter two can be accessed by the Minimal Phone 2). If you don’t have an Apple device to spoof, you can sign up for OpenBubbles Hosted, which is $16.99 per month.
Doesn’t OpenBubble sound like something Apple would disapprove of? OpenBubbles has been around since 2020, so Apple would’ve sicced its lawyers on the company by now if it cared at all. Learn more about OpenBubbles. If you want to jump on the waitlist for Minimal Phone 2, you can sign up on the Minimal website.
