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Are there any chat clients or stand-alone clients that can interact with the iMessage server? I just switched from OSX 10.8.x to Ubuntu 12.10, and it's really the only thing I miss.

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    Warning, I did a google search and the first website that came up was a spam site that claimed there was an open source implementation of imessage for windows. Disregard my earlier post that I deleted.
    – Nil
    Apr 18, 2013 at 15:56
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    here's an answer from another stackexchange site that can answer your question here. The short answer to your question is no.
    – Nil
    Apr 18, 2013 at 16:36
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    @Nil That is for Windows, but what about Ubuntu?
    – Lucio
    Apr 18, 2013 at 16:40
  • @Lucio oh, the same reasoning applies. iMessage is based on a propietary, binary and encrypted protocol (source Wikipedia) with a client side device certificate, which makes it unlikely to be reverse engineered and implemented in third party apps any time soon (although attempts are being made).
    – Nil
    Apr 18, 2013 at 16:42
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    @Nil Well, with that information you should create an answer, instead of mention this in a comment.
    – Lucio
    Apr 18, 2013 at 16:43

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This message is quoted from https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/66047:

iMessage is based on a propietary, binary and encrypted protocol (source Wikipedia) with a client side device certificate, which makes it unlikely to be reverse engineered and implemented in third party apps any time soon (although attempts are being made).

Edit
It may be possible in the future to run the native OS X applications on a Linux OS similar to how we can run Windows applications using wine's compatibility layers. The Darling Project aims to do that. However, I have never encountered a situation where I needed to run a native mac application, so I have never tested it. This does seem promising, though somewhat doubtful. The following is quoted from wikipedia:

Just like APNS it sets up a Keep-Alive connection with the Apple servers. Every connection has its own unique code, which acts as an identifier for the route that should be used to send a message to a specific device. The connection is encrypted with TLS using a client side certificate, that is requested by the device on the activation of iMessage.

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  • would be nice to run sketch on linux.
    – chovy
    Dec 6, 2018 at 3:34
  • Any updates on this?
    – Mark Deven
    Apr 26, 2019 at 12:08
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Well you can't directly, but there are roundabout ways.

Here are two:

Both require an iDevice though. So no, you cant do what you wish, but you can send info from your PC, and have it delivered to your iDevice, and then it sends it. both methods require a jailbroken iDevice.

  1. SSH. You can SSH into your iDevice with putty or something, then send the messages via terminal.

  2. Remote messages: Just install the cydia app, then open your web browser, and type in your idevices ip address, followed by a port number (example: http://192.168.1.3:333/ ). This will work on any platform, even your phone. You can take it a step further by enabling port forwarding, so you can access a device halfway around the world.

Others:

You can always send text messages. Try using curl. Here's a line (If I remember it correctly)

curl http://textbelt.com/text -d number=9876543210 -d "message=put your message here"

There are other messaging tools available as well. If your a hacker/prankster, you can try SET (social engineering tool).

I'm sorry for not being able to supply you with a solution, only alternatives.

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  • RemoteMessages is amazing!! Although this doesn't answer the question as it is worded, this is a very nice iMessage.app replacement that sits on you desktop in a browser window, and has all the functionality - real time messaging, timestamps, contact photos, emojis, etc, as long as you've a jailbroken phone with OpenSSH installed. Really professional job by the RemoteMessages developers!
    – Colin
    Oct 2, 2014 at 21:40
  • I suppose there is no progress on anything like this on non-jailbroken devices, right?
    – Joost
    Dec 15, 2015 at 14:43
  • No there isn't , least that I am aware of. Getting a mac/hackintosh is the only solution I have found.
    – coltonon
    Dec 16, 2015 at 17:29
  • apple should have a web-based version. its stupid that you can only text other iphone users.
    – chovy
    Dec 6, 2018 at 3:37

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