Firechat Enables Cross-Platform, Off-The-Grid Chat Between iOS And Android
Open Garden's Firechat was one of the first — if not the first — application to make use of Apple's new multi-peer mesh networking capabilities. This enabled its users to anonymously chat with each other …
Context & Ripple Effects
Open Garden's Firechat is the payoff to a story that started in March 2014, when Cult of Mac flagged that iOS 7's Multipeer Connectivity framework let devices form and expand networks in places with no signal. Three months later, Firechat ships as one of the first apps built on those APIs — and the first to bridge them across both iOS and Android, anonymously.
The pickup is unusually wide for an app launch: Bloomberg, the BBC, the Guardian, Gizmodo, Gigaom and others all ran it on or about launch day, suggesting the off-the-grid angle — chat that needs neither carrier nor internet — resonated well beyond the usual app-coverage circuit.
First-order effects
- iOS and Android users gain direct device-to-device messaging with no carrier, Wi-Fi hotspot, or account required — Open Garden's anonymity-first design makes identity optional.
- Open Garden converts its position as first mover on Apple's new multi-peer APIs into outsized press attention, with eight-plus major outlets covering the launch within days.
Second-order effects
- Other developers now have a working template for building on Multipeer Connectivity, raising pressure to ship mesh-aware features before the category fills up.
- Carriers face an early demonstration that messaging value can accrue entirely outside their networks — a small but pointed data point in the over-the-top threat they already face from internet-based chat.
Third-order effects
- If Apple keeps opening peer-to-peer radios to third parties and Android follows suit, messaging could stratify into infrastructure-dependent apps and mesh-native apps whose reach grows precisely where connectivity fails — raising operational questions for regulators and emergency planners about networks no operator controls.
The trend: Messaging is beginning to decouple from carrier and internet infrastructure, as platform vendors expose peer-to-peer radios that let apps form their own networks.