Cabin Talk

About Cabin Talk

Cabin Talk lets invited travel companions chat and share photos directly between nearby Apple devices. It works over a local Wi-Fi network or peer-to-peer Wi-Fi without cellular service or a Cabin Talk account.

Text messages can also use an end-to-end encrypted relay in Apple CloudKit. For example, an online parent can exchange text with a remote family member while bridging messages to nearby offline children. CloudKit stores a sealed text payload plus opaque delivery metadata; the developer does not hold the group key needed to read the message. Photos stay on nearby device-to-device connections.

Create a private group, let trusted companions scan its QR invitation or paste the shared invitation text, and keep Cabin Talk open while using it. Text is signed and encrypted before direct or CloudKit transport. Photos are protected in transit between nearby group devices and privacy-normalized before sending. Incoming photos are hidden until revealed, and on-device controls let users prepare a report or block unwanted content.

Apple Account backup is optional. When enabled, you choose when to save, review, restore, or delete a private iCloud backup containing all messages, normalized photos, Past Chats, group access, safety choices, read status, and preferences that Cabin Talk currently retains. Existing retention limits still apply, and operational delivery state and device keys are not transferred. Cabin Talk never asks for your Apple ID password. You can leave backup off and keep using local and nearby features.

Internet catch-up and the nearby-to-internet gateway run only while Cabin Talk is open and active. The app has no always-on background gateway; after backgrounding or force-quitting, reopen it to reconnect and catch up.

Network conditions, device distance, permissions, and airline Wi-Fi restrictions can affect delivery. Cabin Talk is not an emergency or safety-critical service.