XChat, the standalone app for messaging on X, is on the market on iOS now

XChat, the standalone app for accessing X’s messaging characteristic, is on the market to obtain now for iOS. X first recommended it might be stripping direct messaging from X in 2025, however at the very least for now, XChat is on the market within the unique X app, the online and this new app.

Based on its launch video, the brand new XChat app presents most of the components of contemporary messaging X had already introduced to its chats feature, like the flexibility to delete and edit messages, block screenshots and ship disappearing messages. The brand new XChat app additionally helps video and audio calls, and X claims that every one messages despatched with XChat are end-to-end encrypted.

XChat will even be anticipated to be the house of any teams that shaped round X’s Communities characteristic. The social platform recently announced that it was retiring Communities on the finish of Might, and recommended that XChat’s help for bigger group chats could possibly be a worthwhile various. XChat’s group chats can at present have 350 individuals, however X plans to increase that quantity sooner or later.

Elon Musk’s unique pitch after he rebranded Twitter as X, was to show the platform into an “everything app,” the place issues like an algorithmic feed, messaging, job boards and even payments might exist side-by-side. A standalone messaging app looks like the precise reverse of that, but it surely may also mirror the place X finds itself in 2026. The corporate is now a subsidiary of xAI, and xAI itself is part of SpaceX. Musk’s push into AI seems to be the going concern, and cloning one thing like WeChat may simply be much less necessary.