SAN FRANCISCO, April 13, 2026, 07:04 PDT
X’s messaging app, XChat, is due for release on iPhone and iPad on April 17, per its App Store listing. This follows the recent return of voice notes within the service. With the launch, Elon Musk’s platform gets a standalone chat app, stepping further away from its core social feed.
X’s decision to spin off XChat as a standalone app steps up its rivalry with WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal, aligning with Musk’s wider push to remake X as a “super app.” This isn’t just a typical feature tweak; the move puts X’s ambitions on the line, challenging the company to prove it can carve out a dedicated product from private messaging. ynetglobal
Apple’s listing pitches XChat as a spot to “chat with anyone on X in a private, focused space built for conversation.” The free app, built by X Corp. for both iPhone and iPad, is up for pre-order and supports English along with 45 additional languages. Its description makes a point of highlighting: “No ads. No tracking. Fully end-to-end encrypted.” App Store
With launch approaching, the company has been adding features to the product. On April 9, the official @chat account announced, “Voice Notes on XChat are finally here.” The next day, it pushed users to pre-order the iOS app, writing, “Your encrypted chats deserve their own app.” X (formerly Twitter)
Weeks in the making, this move isn’t sudden. Back in March, Michael Boswell—product designer at X and xAI—mentioned the group was “quietly building a standalone X Chat app for iOS.” It first landed with a batch of 1,000 TestFlight users, then got another 5,000 slots later that same day. X (formerly Twitter)
The preview teases features familiar to users of mainstream messaging apps. According to 9to5Mac, which referenced the app’s preview, XChat offers screenshot blocking, disappearing chats, group conversations, and video calls. X’s own help page adds that encrypted file sharing is available, and group messages and media are now also covered by encryption.
The privacy message here isn’t straightforward. According to Apple’s privacy label, X Corp. says its app might gather user data such as contact info, contacts, search history, identifiers, usage data, and diagnostics. Diagnostics, Apple notes, could be used for third-party ads. The company also points out these disclosures aren’t independently verified. Back on April 10, privacy researchers at Mysk flagged the disconnect, writing: “No ads. No tracking. Fully end-to-end encrypted. But it collects all this data.” App Store
There’s also uncertainty around how the encryption is built. Last year, Johns Hopkins cryptographer Matthew Green described XChat’s end-to-end encryption as having a “game-over type of vulnerability.” X’s help page acknowledges another point of concern: the service isn’t forward secure yet, which means if someone gets hold of a private key, past messages could be compromised along with anything sent later. Cryptographic Engineering Thoughts
X claims it relies on the open-source Juicebox protocol for key storage, with intentions to share additional technical specifics. The company also points to a security audit by Trail of Bits. The question now: will those disclosures satisfy privacy concerns ahead of the April 17 deadline? That’s the near-term hurdle for XChat.
