Re:Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage
by jparsons67 on Tuesday May 26, 2026 @02:42PM
(#48284001)
Well, there is this now from Twilio. They announced it at SIGNAL this month.
https://www.twilio.com/en-us/messaging/channels/apple-messag...
Re:Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage
by BoorishBears on Tuesday May 26, 2026 @06:04PM
(#48286639)
Apple Messages for Business has been around for a while, but it's mostly for communicating with a corporation vs consumer products. And iOS presents it like a support chat instead of a normal conversation.
Re:Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage
by jparsons67 on Wednesday May 27, 2026 @10:59AM
(#48295378)
They position it as "Apple user to business communication." They don't limit it to customer service/tech support. Bllie Eillish and the Haas F1 team just launched a fan experiences on it. Saw The Nudge is on it as well, which was a big upgrade from their old SMS experience.
Re:Launch HN: Chert (YC P26) – Twilio for iMessage
by BoorishBears on Wednesday May 27, 2026 @06:47PM
(#48301813)
You're trying to figure out what it is incrementally, and I'm telling you Apple Messages for Business is ancient news and isn't fit for the purpose described: https://www.apple.com/ios/business-chat/
The "experiences" are not normal 1:1 iMessage conversations. You're joining an outreach channel, and only large corporations (that includes whoever does distribution for Billie Eilish) qualify.
Proper consumer apps like:
- tomo.ai - poke.com - fractal.space
Are all building on services that give you an actual iMessage phone number, and those are what I'd like to see actually offer self-serve one day, just like SMS.
You don't need "SMS For Business" to send an SMS.
For me, Twilio for iMessage would mean a DX-first product, highly prototyping friendly, etc... When I was exploring options for a B2C app a while back SendBlue made me sit in a call with a sales person then wanted some 5 figure outlay to start stated...
I'm finally accepting that because of the bootleg nature of programmatic iMessage, any company in the space has to be really aggressive with vetting, which in turn means replacing the "Get Your API Key" button with a "Call Us" button: which is the opposite of what Twillo was great at.