# RELAY - Retro Chat — Nothing is ever saved

> Nothing is ever saved (iPhone/iPad app by Miguel Vilhena.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/relay-retro-chat/id6792389950 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Miguel Vilhena](https://appshunter.io/developer/6787156415)
- Category: Social Networking, Entertainment
- Price: Free with in-app purchases
- Age rating: 17+
- Requires: iOS 17.0 · 19 MB
- Languages: English
- Released: 2026-08-13
- Data updated: 2026-10-12

## What is RELAY?

RELAY is a chat app that forgets.

Every conversation keeps only the messages that fit inside its window. Whatever
scrolls past the top corrupts, dissolves and is wiped from the server. Not hidden.
Not archived. Gone. If you weren't there, you missed it — the way conversation
worked before everything became a permanent record.

It looks like an app running inside an operating system that no longer exists.
Windows with bevelled edges, a taskbar, a desktop with icons you can drag around,
and a chat that behaves like the IRC clients of the late nineties: nicknames in
colour, a user list you can call up, channel operators, and slash commands for
people who remember them.

WHAT'S INSIDE

• Public channels and private ones, opened with a channel key
• Direct messages
• Nicknames that belong to you until you change them
• The full IRC hierarchy: owner, admin, operator, half-operator, voice
• Commands: /op /kick /nick /query /me /ignore and the rest
• A desktop with a paint program, a scores file, and a folder of games

THE DESKTOP

Because the app pretends to be an operating system, it came with an operating
system's furniture. There's a paint program with a spray can. There's a folder
with minesweeper, a ski run with something hunting you, solitaire, and a brick
breaker with ten levels. There's a file that keeps your high scores — the one
thing in RELAY that is allowed to remember.

BOOM.EXE

Hidden on the desktop is a first-person shooter in the shape of the ones that
came on shareware discs. Textured walls, a shotgun, eight demons and a lever that
ends the level. Sold separately, once, forever.

SEVENTEEN LOOKS

Every theme re-tints and re-fonts the entire app — a Windows 9x chat client, an
amber terminal, a green phosphor screen, a Workbench desktop, a teletext page, a
1-bit black and white machine that turns the games monochrome too. Two are free.
The rest, and the wallpapers, can be bought one at a time or all at once.

WHAT'S FREE, WHAT'S NOT

RELAY is free to download, and everything you need to chat is included: public and private channels, direct messages, all four base games, two themes and the default look. The following are optional, one-time in-app purchases — never required to use the app:

- Extra themes (16 more), one at a time or all at once in a bundle
- Extra wallpapers and screen savers
- BOOM.EXE, the shooter

No subscriptions. Anything you buy is yours forever.

PRIVACY, NOT AS A FEATURE BUT AS A SHAPE

You sign in with Apple and we never ask for your name or your email. Your profile
is a nickname. Your messages delete themselves. There is no advertising, no
analytics, and nothing to sell, because there is nothing kept.

It's a chat room. It's the size of a window. Then it's gone.

## Pricing and in-app purchases

Base price: Free.

**One-time purchases**

| Purchase | Price | Type |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Navy Wallpaper | $0.99 | one-time |
| Custom Photo Wallpaper | $0.99 | one-time |
| Diagonal Pattern | $0.99 | one-time |
| Grid Pattern | $0.99 | one-time |
| Noise Pattern | $0.99 | one-time |
| Tiles Pattern | $0.99 | one-time |
| Waves Pattern | $0.99 | one-time |
| AQUARIUM Screen Saver | $0.99 | one-time |
| MAZE Screen Saver | $0.99 | one-time |
| PIPES Screen Saver | $0.99 | one-time |



## Version history (last 1 release)

### 1.0 — 2026-08-11

No release notes.

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## More apps by Miguel Vilhena

- [The_Game.exe](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/the-gameexe/id6791900364)

All apps by Miguel Vilhena: https://appshunter.io/developer/6787156415

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-10-12.*