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

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

Based mostly on its launch video, the brand new XChat app affords lots of the components of contemporary messaging X had already launched to its chats characteristic, 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 each one messages despatched with XChat are end-to-end encrypted.

XChat can even be anticipated to be the house of any teams that fashioned round X’s Communities characteristic. The social platform not too long ago introduced that it was retiring Communities on the finish of Could, and recommended that XChat’s help for bigger group chats could possibly be a worthwhile different. XChat’s group chats can presently have 350 individuals, however X plans to increase that quantity sooner or later.

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