Air Message
Being a complete Apple geek, it was a surprise to myself but also to others when I switched from my daily iPhone 7+ to a Huawei P20 Pro for 18 months, the lure of the impressive camera drew me in.
But two things made me switch back to the iPhone.
1. The lack of iMessage support on Android
2. An application called Roadtrip (blog post to come later).
I just wish I knew about Air Message, those 18 months I strayed to Android it would of saved me so much time being able to reply straight from my Mac on messages instead of having to pick the phone up, and equally no messages sync’ed to my iPad either.
Image : AirMessage
What Is Air Message?
It’s a two part application suite, which needs a Mac of some sort to run the server part on and a application installing on the Android device.
AirMessage Server (required) | macOS 10.10 Yosemite or newer
AirMessage for Android | Android 6.0 Marshmallow or newer
It then gives the ability of iMessage on the android phone.
How Does It Work?
The application on the Mac is called the AirMessage Server, this has access to your iMessage application on the Mac. When a new iMessage arrives the AirMessage server then pushed the message to your Android device, when you reply or start a new message the AirServer receives the message hands it to iMessage which send as normal to the Apple user.
It all sounds very complex, but the AirMessage Server handles all the grunt work, all you need todo is open a port on your router to allow the AirMessage see out to the internet, there is very little to no delay in the message relay so you’ll always be up to date with messages.
https://airmessage.org/install/ - Explains all the information on installation and port opening, very easy to follow and understand.
Is It Safe?
Its as safe as any other messaging service, there may be some levels of security issues in opening ports on your home router which then leaves pin holes in your firewall, there’s loads of documentation on the internet about this a quick Google search will allow you to form your own opinion.
Traffic is sent via secure tunnels which mitigates the chance on messages being intercepted in transit, and connections between your Android device and AirMessage server are password protected.
