{"id":421,"date":"2022-11-21T09:21:21","date_gmt":"2022-11-21T09:21:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/batteriesfast.co.uk\/blogs\/?p=421"},"modified":"2022-11-21T09:21:21","modified_gmt":"2022-11-21T09:21:21","slug":"i-use-imessage-on-my-android-phone-heres-how","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.batteriesfast.co.uk\/blogs\/archives\/421","title":{"rendered":"I use iMessage on my Android phone – here’s how"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One of the biggest pain points in the modern smartphone industry is Apple’s refusal to treat non-iPhone messaging systems well. iMessage has long dominated U.S. iPhone users, leaving Android phone<\/a><\/strong> users to communicate with their fruit-carrying friends only through third-party services such as text messages or Whatsapp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But thanks to some savvy folks, you can get iMessage on Android (and PC) as long as you have macOS installed. The service is called BlueBubbles, an open-source initiative that acts as a server on your Mac to intercept your iMessages and route them to connected client apps. Let’s take a look below!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Set up a macOS virtual machine
When you read that you need a Mac, your heart may sink like mine. That’s a problem for a lot of people because Macs don’t represent a significant part of the PC market — and they’re not cheap either. However, there are several options to consider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first and easiest way is that you buy a used Mac cheaply and run the BlueBubbles server on it. The second is more involved, but that’s what I ended up picking. It involves a macOS virtual machine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t hide the fact that I’m a computer junkie. I have a set of computers in my utility room that act as my servers, or a small home lab if you will. All my important services are running in virtual machines and Docker containers, like my web ad blocker, Jellyfin media server, website, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But macOS has special requirements to function properly in a virtual environment, so I bought an old, used Xeon workstation PC on eBay for $30, and an upgraded CPU for $20. I followed these instructions from Nicholas Sherlock to install macOS Ventura in a virtual machine. There are many steps, but if you follow them exactly, it should work for you. It took me a while to configure the VM, but it turned out to be a lot easier than I thought. However, the actual macOS installation process adds a lot of time on top of the setup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But after a successful boot, I went through the final configuration steps to make sure macOS was up and running, signed in with my Apple ID, and started installing BlueBubbles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Install BlueBubbles Server
From here, I just follow BlueBubbles’ instructions, which are very clear and well documented – much to the satisfaction of my ex-tech writer. Visit the website, download the DMG file and install it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Configuring the cloud based notification system took some time to complete as I needed to work through the Google Firebase console. That said, BlueBubbles walked me through the process from start to finish. I appreciate how simple the whole thing is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My little question boils down to how I want to run the server publicly. I originally planned to use DDNS and port forwarding on my router to serve my messages away from the local network. But I ran into some configuration issues, so I chose the Cloudflare option. It’s still free and works well so far, even though manually typing long URL strings on PC is annoying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once the server was up and running, I simply installed the client app on my Pixel 5, scanned the QR code generated by the server, and I was good to go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the biggest pain points in the modern smartphone industry is Apple’s refusal to treat non-iPhone messaging systems well. iMessage has long dominated U.S. iPhone users, leaving Android phone users to communicate with their fruit-carrying friends only through third-party services such as text messages or Whatsapp. But thanks to some savvy folks, you can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8,4],"class_list":["post-421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-android","tag-phone"],"yoast_head":"\nI use iMessage on my Android phone - here's how - Batteries Fast Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.batteriesfast.co.uk\/blogs\/archives\/421\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I use iMessage on my Android phone - 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