For some time XMPP has been in need of a good solution for Apple’s mobile operating system,
iOS. In 2020 we now have a number of active projects. Work on the long-standing iOS (and now
also MacOS) client Monal IM has really picked up in recent months, in no small part thanks
to the efforts of tmolitor, who has been
contributing a lot of modernization to both the UI and the internals.
It’s exciting to see so much activity happening around XMPP on iOS now, and both projects
are adding more modern XMPP features with every release. Snikket does not currently have
an official iOS client, so we’ve obviously been keeping a close eye on these advancements.
A major interoperability problem between the current version of Siskin and other modern XMPP
clients is that it does not support end-to-end encryption (OMEMO) in group chats. This means
that users of Siskin cannot participate in private group chats started by Conversations or
the Snikket client on Android, because they are end-to-end encrypted by default.
OMEMO is a form of “end-to-end encryption”, which means
that it hides message contents from the servers and operators of each chat participant. Siskin
already supports OMEMO for one-to-one conversations, but not group conversations.
One of the goals of Snikket’s CIC is supporting and advancing the
XMPP ecosystem. With that in mind, we’ve been working in recent months to obtain funding
to close this gap in Siskin. Today we are pleased to announce that thanks to a private donor,
the project can now move forward. The Tigase team will commence work on OMEMO in MUC in the
coming weeks!
This is really exciting news, and will bring the XMPP experience for iOS users an important
step closer to that of other platforms. There will be more announcements in the future, stay
tuned!
If you want to help us with our goals and other projects like this,
consider a donation, contribute in some other way,
or simply help spread the word! The future of XMPP is coming :)
