Zangi - Private Messenger

I’ve been using Zangi on iOS for a little while now, and overall it’s a pretty good app, but theres one really anoying problem I keep having. Everytime I turn my camera on during a call, my screen goes sideways for no reason. I tried fixing it by rotating my iPad, locking and unlocking rotation, and even restarting the app, but nothing works. It just keeps doing it and it makes video calls super hard to use. Besides that issue, the app is kinda decent. The call quality is usualy fine and messages send pretty fast, but the camera glitch really messes things up. Also sometimes the layout feels a bit confusing and not very easy to use at first. I think Zangi could be way better if they fix the camera bug ASAP. They should also make the interface more simple and maybe add better settings for video so users can control stuff easier. A dark mode upgrade and smoother design would help too. Right now it’s okay, but because of the bugs I wouldnt fully recomend it until they fix these problems.

I appreciate the privacy of an app that has end-to-end encryption and stores your data only on your device, but Zangi takes that to extremes. If I want to use Zangi on my iPhone when I’m holding that but on my iPad or Mac when I’m in front of that, I can’t. Not only do past messages not appear when you sign in on a new device (which is 100% understandable and I expected), but you’re suddenly signed out on the first device, with an “invalid account” message popping up. By comparison, Signal wants to use your existing phone number, but at least allows you to receive/read/send messages on more than one device at a time. The app asks for access to your contacts so it can see who else you’re connected to, which seems shady, since you never use your actual phone number when registering, just a seemingly random Zangi “private number.” I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that there’s potential value, perhaps comparing the names of people in your contacts to the names of people who’ve registered, but I figure if you want someone to have your Zangi private number, you’ll give it to them.

First, I need to say that this is a good traditional messenger app. Links show up with nice previews, gifs auto play, "FaceTime" and the rest of the usual bells & whistles. Now, as an encrypted messenger app, it's good because it has end-to-end encryption, nothing is stored or passes through any other party. However, I did give it three stars because I believe there are at least a couple necessary features that are missing from this app. Zangi doesn't have disappearing messages, you can't put a Touch ID or Face ID lock on the app, and you can't use a decryption key of your choosing. I've also noticed some really strange behavior like random pictures from my photo album being sent when all I type is text. Also, I've found that many of my text replacements won't work if I type and send the message quickly. Honestly, I prefer the messenger app "Signal", but I have friends on both, so I use both. I will admit that Zangi has the better GUI though.