Partly, through OpenBubbles, an Android app that signs the phone in to iMessage as if it were an Apple device. It isn’t built in, and Apple hasn’t approved it. Decaf is the other route: iMessage stays on at home, on your Mac, and the texts that matter reach the Minimal Phone 2 as SMS, with a way to reply.
The Minimal Phone 2 is an e-ink Android phone with a keyboard, due to ship in December 2026 after a Kickstarter that raised $2.3 million from 3,416 backers (Kickstarter). It runs full Android, so you can install what you like. For iMessage, The Minimal Company points to OpenBubbles (Macworld, July 2026): setting it up needs a Mac or an iPhone of your own, or a hosted relay at $16.99 a month, and Apple has shut down services like it before.
If what you want is the iMessage app on the phone, blue bubbles and all, that is the route to it. Decaf is for a different wish: a phone that stays quiet and gets only what can’t wait, with nothing installed on it.
Decaf is a calm iMessage Mac app that relays time-sensitive and important texts to a second phone. Your iPhone keeps your main number and stays home, plugged in. The Minimal Phone 2 gets a number of its own. Decaf, on your Mac, texts the Minimal Phone 2 when something can’t wait; the rest waits for when you sit down.
You answer in the same thread. Before a reply is relayed, Decaf asks for confirmation, and it goes out from your main number, as if you had typed it on your Mac. Your group chats stay where they are.
Decaf
Decaf works while the Mac is awake and online. You will be slower to reply than you were from an iPhone.
Decaf’s setup assumes your main number stays in your iPhone. Four things to decide before you call your carrier.
Already moved your main number to the Minimal Phone 2? Then it isn’t in an iPhone any more, and Decaf has nothing to relay from.
Free 14-day trial. Then a $20 one-time purchase.
Join the waitlistSetting up takes about 10 minutes with both phones handy. The setup guide has every step.