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So the idea to put a switch in the Android app (and match it in the iOS app)

This is really not something I want to include in the app loader, given we've spent a lot of time trying to avoid duplication.

If you actually benchmark it, I bet you'll find that the actual time saved by duplicating the code vs just putting it in the messages app is 1/1000th of a second or so... Really not worth it.

I can see that the new messages app will be great, but I'd like something much, much simpler: no storage, no responses, no widget, just very fast and clear text.

Ahh, sorry - I misunderstood... So if you don't want any storage, I think the best bet is for you to come up with a complete replacement for the messages app like @rigrig did with https://git.tubul.net/rigrig/BangleApps/src/branch/personal/apps/smessages/lib.js . Basically implement just require("messages").pushMessage that doesn't store the message but instead puts it on the screen right away in an overlay.

Right now, Android and iOS apps have a "dependencies": {"messages":"app"}, which requires the specific messages app - but it's trivial to change this to "dependencies": {"messages":"type"}, and as you mentioned make "messages" a new app type so that it's happy with any app that has "type":"messages" in its JSON. It looks like I'll end up having to do this anyway for @rigrig's.

So then all anyone has to do is install the Android app, and your new Instant Messages app, and everything should work great.

It's worth adding that some of the delay between the phone buzz and the Bangle showing the message can also be from the phone sending the message to Bangle.js. You could do NRF.setConnectionInterval(7.5) which would lower the Bangle's battery life, but would make message reception much faster (for the first message received after a few minutes when the bluetooth connection would normally go into low power mode).