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Social network X is bringing its private messaging service, called X Chat, to a standalone app. The company on Monday said that the initial beta of the X Chat app has been made available to 1,000 users through Apple’s TestFlight testing platform.
The beta program reached full capacity two hours after the announcement. According to a X post by xAI product designer Michael Boswell, the company will expand the beta beyond the initial 1,000 users “soon,” though he didn’t offer an ETA.
“Over the past few months, we’ve been quietly building a standalone X Chat app for iOS,” Boswell wrote on X. “Use it. Break it. We want your feedback,” he said.
X Chat is the upgraded version of X’s existing DM (direct messages) feature, which the company claims is end-to-end encrypted. Security experts, however, warns potential users that the X Chat service is less secure than other encrypted messaging apps, such as Signal, and is not necessarily reliable. It’s unclear whether the company has addressed the community’s concerns over the security of the standalone app.
The introduction of the app represents a decisive shift from X owner Elon Musk’s plan to make X “all apps,” which will provide access to messaging, payments, creator content, and more, centralizing all aspects of the service.
Some of the early testers have started sharing screenshots in the app interface. A user said that the beta version of the app has styled the name xChat instead of X Chat, which could suggest a potential change. Others have started sharing screenshots from the app, such as login screenwith a starry background.
Early users described the app as a simpler, smoother interface for using X Chat compared to the X app. The current version of the app does not include message requests, but Boswell does States which is being rebuilt now.
xAI’s Grok answered questions about the new X app, confirming other details such as the app age ratingwhich will be like X (17+ in the iOS App Store), and that chats COME sync the X app and the chat.x.com web appwhich was launched in December 2025.
AI chatbot too THE audience that an Android version of the X Chat app is expected “soon.”
