RELAY vs Hashti

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.

(App Store and Play, 2,385 of 4,000 characters) Hashti is chatrooms the way they used to be, with a messenger built in. Open a room about anything and leave it running. People walk in, talk and leave, with no algorithm deciding who hears you. When a conversation should stay between you, take it to a private chat. ROOMS THAT STAY OPEN Public rooms anyone can join, or private ones behind a link, an invite or a password. Turn on voice when you want to talk, stage mode when one person should have the floor, slow mode when it moves too fast. Pick a template (support group, study hall, open mic, watch party, Q&A) and it sets itself up. THINGS TO DO TOGETHER Trivia, two truths and a lie, word chain, categories, would you rather and polls. A shared listening queue everyone hears in sync, a whiteboard, a soundboard, breakout rooms, and speed networking that pairs everybody one to one. PRIVATE CHATS AND GROUPS Message friends one to one or in groups. Send photos, videos, voice notes and round video notes, share a location or a contact, run a poll or plan an event. Reply, react, edit, pin, star and search. Disappearing messages, view-once photos and videos, and scheduled messages when you need them. CALLS AND WALKIE-TALKIE Voice and video calls with one friend or a group of up to 16, and call links for the people you invite. Or hold the walkie-talkie button in a chat and whoever has Hashti open hears you right away. STATUS, CHANNELS AND COMMUNITIES Share a status for a day with the people you choose. Follow channels for updates, and bring groups together in a community. PRIVACY YOU CONTROL Choose who can message you, who sees when you were last online, and who can add you to groups. Lock the app, or only the chats you want kept out of sight. Secret chats between friends are end-to-end encrypted. A CORNER THAT'S YOURS A profile you actually style, a wall, a guestbook people sign. Friends, follows, and a radar showing which rooms they are in right now. SAFETY IS NOT AN AFTERTHOUGHT Report anything: a message, a room, a person. A person reviews every report within 24 hours, and reports about a child's safety go to the front of the queue. Blocking is instant. Slurs and threats are stopped before they are sent, and accounts that keep breaking the rules are removed. Verifying your ID is optional; it unlocks messaging strangers, hosting rooms and speaking on voice. Hashti is for people 17 and over. HASHTI PLUS Live translation, writing help and catch-ups are part of Hashti Plus: $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year. Payment is charged to your Apple Account when you confirm the purchase, and the subscription renews at the same price unless you turn it off at least 24 hours before the period ends. Manage or cancel it in your Apple Account settings. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://hashti.app/privacy