iMessage comes to Nothing’s Android phones (for now)

[The Morning After]( It's Wednesday, November 15, 2023. In the US, Apple’s iMessage is so popular that the fact it shows texts from non-iOS handsets in a different color is a big deal. This status anxiety is so great, the Android world has begged regulators to force Apple to… change the color of a text bubble. Now, [Nothing is taking matters into its own hands, partnering with unified messaging platform Sunbird to hide that shame](. Sunbird uses your Apple ID to route comms between your Nothing phone and your friends’ iPhones through a server farm of Mac Minis. If it works as well as promised, it means your friends won’t know you own an Android handset… until the next time you see them in person. Of course, none of this is happening with Apple’s blessing, so it needs a workaround. You need to hand over your credentials to a third party and risk the fallout should Apple decide to intervene. Nothing CEO Carl Pei believes Apple can’t risk the bad PR if it shuts Sunbird down, but that’s not a bet I’d like to take. It’s worth saying this is almost unique to the US — most of the world just uses third-party platforms like WhatsApp. Not to mention if your friends give you grief because of the phone you own, they aren’t your friends. — Dan Cooper ​​You can get these reports delivered daily direct to your inbox. [Subscribe right here!]( The biggest stories you might have missed [Ableton Live 12 can create MIDI riffs and has a new synth to play them]( [The best smartwatches]( [Venmo’s Groups feature could spell trouble for bill-splitting apps]( [Here are the coolest trailers from Nintendo’s Indie World event]( [The 16 best gift ideas for remote workers]( Make life easier when you’re WFH-ing. [[Hero image of our Working from Home buyer's guide] Will Lipman Photography for Engadget]( Working from home makes you happier, healthier, more productive and helps you keep on top of things outside of office life. It’s no surprise people enjoying those benefits are keen to improve their domestic working environment. [Today’s guide is a list of handy gifts for home workers, including productivity timers, ergonomic mice, extra monitors and more](. [Continue Reading.]( [Opal’s Tadpole proves webcams don’t need to be big or boring]( It’s so small, but mighty. [[Image of the Opal Tadpole webcam on a brown desk with its white, braided USB-C cable beside it. ] Photo by James Trew / Engadget]( Opal makes ultra-premium webcams in surprisingly small bodies. [Its latest, the Tadpole, is absolutely for laptop users](. James Trew put the dinky device through its paces, and he thinks it might be a winner. Picture quality is pretty good, but the directional audio helps screen out enough unwanted audio that it deserved extra praise. [Continue Reading.]( [AI is starting to outperform meteorologists]( But can an LLM make cheesy jokes on the news? A machine-learning algorithm that can predict weather patterns is causing a storm in the meteorological community. [DeepMind’s GraphCast can predict 10 days of patterns in under a minute and, according to one study]( vastly outperform the existing technology. It’s already borne fruit, too, successfully predicting when Hurricane Lee would land on Long Island 10 days before it happened. [Continue Reading.]( [Uber is cracking down on users who give bad ratings just to get refunds]( It’s to prevent drivers being blamed for things out of their control. Uber says it wants to make the platform better for riders and drivers alike and will now [clamp down on users who give bad reviews just to score a refund](. The company is targeting those negative nellies and will discard or downrank their complaints to protect the ratings of otherwise good drivers. [Continue Reading.]( The Morning After is a daily newsletter from Engadget designed to help you fight off FOMO. Who knows what you'll miss if you don't [subscribe](. Craving even more? [Like us on Facebook]( or [follow us on Twitter](. Have a suggestion on how we can improve The Morning After? [Send us a note.]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Youtube]( [Instagram]( You are receiving this email because you opted in at [engadget.com](. Not interested anymore? [Unsubscribe from this newsletter.]( Copyright © 2023 Yahoo. All rights reserved.