X launches stand-alone XChat app on iOS

X launches stand-alone XChat app on iOS

XChat, X’s stand-alone messaging app, launched to the public on Friday. Initially out there on iOS devices, the new app permits customers to attach with their X contacts for messaging, file sharing, audio and video calls, in addition to group chats.

The company first started publicly testing XChat with a small group of beta customers earlier this yr to get their suggestions about the new experience.

The XChat app is a key piece to the strategic imaginative and prescient for the company, which sees the social network as a jumping-off point for other companies, like messaging or funds. (The latter is also being examined as a devoted app, though it’s not yet out there publicly.)

However, X’s resolution to interrupt out of a chunk of its platform to change into its personal devoted app is a shift away from proprietor Elon Musk’s earlier plan to make X an “everything app,” which would offer a single place to entry messaging, funds, creator content, purchasing, AI, and more.

Instead, xAI (Musk’s AI company that owns X and is itself owned by Musk’s other company SpaceX) is now providing a collection of apps to offer more shopper touchpoints with its companies.

At launch, the XChat app gives help for messaging and calling, in addition to other options that it says are privateness protected, including the ability to edit and delete messages for everybody in the chat; help for disappearing messages; and the ability to dam screenshots. X claims there are not any adverts or monitoring mechanisms in the app.

The company also claims that all messages are end-to-end encrypted and PIN protected — though safety consultants have beforehand disputed the company’s encryption claims.

Security consultants had earlier warned potential customers that the XChat service seems to be less safe than other encrypted messaging apps, like Signal, when the app was first launched. They might want to consider the devoted XChat app again, now that it’s broadly out there, to see if the crucial enhancements have been made.

In addition to providing a spot to have non-public chats or group chats, XChat is also stepping in to function the new vacation spot for X’s Communities, which the company has determined to close down as a result of lack of use and high quantities of spam. The timing of that news might give XChat an early increase in new installs, as community members make the shift.

More updates to XChat are seemingly still deliberate, according to X lead designer Benji Taylor, who teased that the app is “just the beginning of what we’re building for messaging.”

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