Whoa, I was just mentioning in another post how I have my family member install bitchat just in case for emergencies. This is a very interesting alternative. With a travel router, I can significantly expand the chat radius compared to bitchat's purely BLE approach.
Edit: Boo, no iOS app
You should definitely read the news about bitchat. It doesnt actually have basically any security or privacy from all the dozens of independent security audit findings. Jack even said it was vibe coded and never audited.
It doesn't look likely that there will ever be an iOS app[1], unless Apple makes key changes in the way iOS works[2].
[1] https://code.briarproject.org/briar/briar/-/wikis/FAQ#will-t...
[2] https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/685525