If I understood correctly the Sunbird solution is basically setting up an account on a virtual computer and then relaying imessages? That has all kinds of red flags associated if true.
The obsession with blue bubbles is really silly from all sides of it. Ironically I think Apple intended it to allow people to understand when a message was secure or not, I don’t think they thought it would become a social status marker. Don’t get me wrong, they could have put effort in to better integrate once this all started and clearly they’re leveraging the situation to retain customers - I’m one of them, I gave up and went to iOS because 99% of my family is there and I can’t convince them to adopt Signal, etc.
Having said all of that, trying to build third party middleware at the expense of user security just to fake having an iPhone app is equally silly.
Thank you for the heads up. Mine had already updated this morning. Not sure if you were able to get yours working but in case others are having problems the new update splash screen prompts you to select a subscription option. If you close that prompt it will ask to choose local/cloud storage and enter your master password. Once I did that all of my keys showed up.
Having said all of that I will be switching out of this app as soon as I find a replacement. Totally fine if developers want to generate revenue by adding features or services (I pay for plenty of great apps) but this is a clear attempt to generate revenue quickly. Even a simple splash screen warning users this was coming would have demonstrated some confidence in the new ownership, but they have traded any confidence for a quick dollar.
Edit: they have locked the zip export feature behind their paywall 🤬 I would rather spend all day manually moving codes than give these scammers a single dime