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Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access
- nicklevin 3y agoSaw that coming. Just like Google did with the SEO heist a person bragged about a couple weeks ago, if you make big tech companies look foolish they are going to react quickly.
- blinding-streak 3y agoSEO heist?
- minimaxir 3y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38433856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38433856
- minimaxir 3y agoWhen did Google react to the SEO heist? I can't seem to find a source for it.
- nicklevin 3y agohttps://x.com/rosshudgens/status/1729889490947518868 https://x.com/rosshudgens/status/1729889490947518868
- gruez 3y agoThis is still baffling. The tweets make it sound like they're competing against google and stole traffic from google, but their landing page makes it look like they're some sort of business modeling SaaS? Why would they be competing against google?
- travem 3y agoThey are competing against another business (not google), and through AI generation of content (based information gathered from the competitors site map) they were able to capture web traffic from Google that would previously have gone to their competitor.
- ribosometronome 3y agoIsn't it just fighting over already low effort affiliate spam pages, anyway? The ideal result is seeing none of them.
- CuriousCosmic 3y agoThe issue isn't just low effort affilate spam pages piss fighting with each other. It's that they were trying to sell the technique as a product to people who make actual content so that they could steer viewership of their other high-quality-content competitors towards AI generated garbage. Basically a weapon to taint your competitors brands by redirecting their viewers away from their content to ad saturated AI garbage.
- ec109685 3y agoThe follow up tweet says he typo'd the company name in the screenshot: https://twitter.com/RossHudgens/status/1729927440112189820 https://twitter.com/RossHudgens/status/1729927440112189820 And the tweet fundamentally misunderstands how ahref works. If google killed the site in question, ahref would have no idea given they have their own crawl.
- mchanson 3y agoSmart to do it Friday afternoon.
- sneak 3y agoNothing about reimplementing an iMessage/APNS client from scratch makes Apple look foolish. If anything, it makes iMessage look desirable, like a long line in front of a nightclub. Literally everyone “saw that coming”. It’s also obvious that the client will be updated to make it work again, and the cycle will repeat.
- vinberdon 3y agoThat was fast!
- cloudking 3y agoI wonder what Apple will do with the number registrations that came from Androids.
- frizlab 3y agoUnregister them, just like when so switch from iOS to android I guess
- mchanson 3y agoDone late on a Friday.
- spzb 3y agoIf I know anything about software dev, it'll be someone at Bleeper who fat-fingered something in their haste to get the weekend started.
- ReptileMan 3y agoThe EU will probably look closely into that.
- jdewerd 3y ago[flagged]
- superb_dev 3y agoWhy? iMessage so far isn't a part of the EU's plan. There's no requirement for it to be open.
- duskwuff 3y agoIt was for a while, but they reversed course: https://arstechnica.com/apple/2023/12/imessage-will-reportedly-dodge-eu-regulations-wont-have-to-open-up/ https://arstechnica.com/apple/2023/12/imessage-will-reported...
- snthd 3y agoIt might be a breech of the GDPR's data portability requirements. It comes down to if, by having people send you messages, you are the one providing the data to the data controller, or not. Currently I think it's ambiguous.
- rplnt 3y agoApple isn't blocking competitive messaging apps from their platform. They are simply blocking unauthorized access to their services. EU won't look at Slack for blocking your irc client, and EU won't look at this.
- hnuser435 3y agoBrutal. Will there be refunds?
- graypegg 3y agoWell, to be fair, wasn't this always going to be the end state? I wouldn't be surprised if the choice of subscription plan was mostly because it makes "total value-time received" a really easy calculation. It worked for 2 months, you're not getting your 4$ back. Surprised it only lasted this long though, I'm sure they weren't betting on that. I still wouldn't expect a refund for the 1,50$ of 3 weeks this payment cycle that you didn't use.
- sgjohnson 3y ago> I still wouldn't expect a refund for the 1,50$ of 3 weeks this payment cycle that you didn't use. I would. They sold a service that they clearly cannot reliably provide.
- jmkni 3y agoYou and I know that, but your average consumer has no idea, and could absolutely argue they have been swindled.
- DeIlliad 3y agoBeeper Mini starts as a 7 day trial and its been 24 hours so I imagine they'll be fine.
- focusedone 3y agoWhy can't we have nice things?
- sonicanatidae 3y agoHumans. Humans are why we can't have nice things.
- waffleiron 3y agoGreed I’d argue, there are many that aren’t greedy but enough to ruin many things.
- aidenn0 3y agoOh, so we just kill all the humans, and then we can have nice things?
- sonicanatidae 3y agoIt's an option. Not the one I would try first, but sure..
- fasquoika 3y agoPersonally nearly every nice thing in my life either is a human or was made by one
- thomastjeffery 3y agoIt's a bit redundant to mention "is a human" separately, since humans are made by... wait a minute
- quickthrower2 3y agoReproduction isn’t really a human making a human. Where making means using your cognitive power to apply focus to a creative task. It is more akin to natural biological processes. Do humans make poo, or hair?
- JohnMakin 3y agothis comment predicted it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38536577 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38536577
- madeofpalk 3y agoI'm pretty sure everyone predicted it. It was exceptionally clear to anyone that Apple would block this and patch the hole that allows it to work.
- etchalon 3y agoYou mean the company who controls the protocol, and the clients, and the servers for a given service somehow found a way to stop a third-party from utilizing that service without permission? I am shocked at this outcome, and shall write my senator.
- sonicanatidae 3y agoMake sure you mention the tubes!
- rplnt 3y agoAnd IIRC it used some old OSX binaries to do so? Just terminating the access might be a lucky outcome if that's the case, considring the money involved.
- tadfisher 3y agopypush uses the old binary pulled from macOS. Beeper Mini uses another workaround for the device UUID/serial/etc. requirement.
- turquoisevar 3y ago> Beeper Mini uses another workaround for the device UUID/serial/etc. requirement. Have you got a source on that? As far as I know, there's no workaround possible because the authentication blob is based on the UDID/serial. Put differently: without UDID/serial, there's no way of authenticating with the message servers. Beeper keeps referring to pypush when it comes to details in their write-up[0], and pypush, in turn, clearly states[1] the need for information like serial and UDID when dealing with the albert server and IDS registration request. As a “workaround,” they simply stuff fake serials, etc., and cross their fingers that it gets through Apple’s scoring mechanism. 0: https://blog.beeper.com/p/how-beeper-mini-works https://blog.beeper.com/p/how-beeper-mini-works 1: https://jjtech.dev/reverse-engineering/imessage-explained/ https://jjtech.dev/reverse-engineering/imessage-explained/
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- chrisbrandow 3y agoI mean, what did they really expect when accessing a private messaging service without permission? Maybe it shouldn't be private or whatever, but it still seemed weird to me that they thought this would "just work".
- wmf 3y agoOne may wonder if the real goal was to create an antitrust case rather than a working app.
- madeofpalk 3y agoHow is this a demonstration of "antitrust"? Apple does not unfairly prevent competition for messaging apps, as evidenced by a plethora of competition for messaging apps, plenty of which are far more popular on iPhone outside of the US. Apple faces the heat of this competition - it frequently adds features to iMessage to make it equal or better than it's competition. Voice notes through iMessage was a direct reaction to popularity of that feature in other platforms.
- jethro_tell 3y agoAdditionally, didn't they just announce that RCS would be a first class citizen in '24? Feel free to use the open standard but don't be iMessage. I'm a long time beeper user. It's been nice to sign up with my email, and at least be in a few of the iPhone only chats. When I saw Eric's post the other day, my first thought was 'what an arrogant dumbass.' My guess was that they though they have an anti trust case, and my guess is that apple may have thought the same, and so they enabled 'iMessage' access to RCS. This was so predictable, especially after the RCS announcement, that I messaged my group threads and said they'd be borked by the end of the week, please switch back to signal. So, I think I'll ride that train until RCS is a thing and be done with beeper. I honestly think they just shot themselves in the foot. https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/16/23964171/apple-iphone-rcs-support https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/16/23964171/apple-iphone-rc...
- thomastjeffery 3y ago
- amelius 3y agoIt's for your own good. Those Android users cannot be trusted.
- skeaker 3y agoTo downvoters, the above appears to be sarcasm. Apple would love you to believe this even though it's just blatantly silly, which is why it's funny.
- em-bee 3y agoi think some people downvote because they don't like sarcasm on hackernews
- yodon 3y agoAny time one is tempted to post a sarcastic comment, it's good to re-read Poe's law[0] first. It does in fact always apply when posting on the internet. [0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
- dang 3y agoRecent and related: Show HN: Beeper Mini – iMessage client for Android - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38531759 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38531759 - Dec 2023 (863 comments) iMessage, explained - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38532167 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38532167 - Dec 2023 (143 comments)
- JaggedJax 3y ago[flagged]
- DeIlliad 3y agoThis status page is for their cloud offering, Beeper Cloud. Given how Beeper Mini works I don't think they could even make a status page for it?
- JaggedJax 3y agoThat's very likely. They don't actually say anywhere what that status page is for. I do feel like they could be and should be collecting stats on whether or not messages are sending properly or not in app, especially since this ways always the most likely scenario eventually.
- crazysim 3y agoThis was the way with GAIM and Adium and stuff back in the old days. It'll be back.
- malfist 3y agoOh man this brought back memories. I had forgotten those words
- phailhaus 3y agoCrazy that the CEO even tried to create an entire company based on something that they absolutely cannot control. Was this an acquisition play?
- mwidell 3y agoI used to think like this before I saw companies like Instagram and Tiktok thrive in the app store, which they absolutely cannot control. It is often worth a shot.
- wilsynet 3y agoRelying on the App Store to distribute your app is more than a little different than building an extension to iMessages. Apple and Google want you to use their app stores in this way. Apple does not want you to bridge iMessages to other platforms.
- LeonB 3y agoTrue, but I think this sentence buries the key point: “Apple and Google want you to use their app stores in this way.” …they want you to use their app stores, their way, because they retain 100% control of what you can and cannot do.
- LeonB 3y agoYep, agree++. It’s impossible to avoid relying on other people’s platforms. (Unless you want approximately zero customers, I guess) I wish these monopolistic corps didn’t have such an iron grip, but I’m not demanding creators single handedly remove every dependency on them. There is no ethical consumption (or production) in late stage capitalism.
- maelito 3y agoThe entire company is not based on Beeper Mini.
- rglullis 3y agoBeeper is doing a lot more than just an iMessage proxy.
- ElijahLynn 3y ago> Reached for comment, Beeper CEO Eric Migicovsky did not deny that Apple has successfully blocked Beeper Mini. “If it’s Apple, then I think the biggest question is... if Apple truly cares about the privacy and security of their own iPhone users, why would they stop a service that enables their own users to now send encrypted messages to Android users, rather than using unsecure SMS? With their announcement of RCS support, it’s clear that Apple knows they have a gaping hole here. Beeper Mini is here today and works great. Why force iPhone users back to sending unencrypted SMS when they chat with friends on Android?” Does it come down to The Law of Leaky Abstractions? >> https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/11/11/the-law-of-leaky-abstractions/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/11/11/the-law-of-leaky-a... Which means that if Apple wants to change something eventually, then they will possibly break downstream abstractions and then people will complain and the downstream abstraction will say "Well Apple changed their API, it is their fault". Letting someone do it from square one would be enabling that future scenario, as it isn't "if" it changes, it is "when". If it was an open source API that would be different, but Apple's is closed source, that is Apple's philosophy at the core. It is a closed API yah? Not even an open spec right?
- ElijahLynn 3y agoThe good thing though is that Apple finally announced RCS support > https://9to5mac.com/2023/11/16/apple-rcs-coming-to-iphone/ https://9to5mac.com/2023/11/16/apple-rcs-coming-to-iphone/
- graphe 3y agoGood? RCS isn't universal. Am I gonna be sending and receiving Google, Verizon, TMobile, or Samsung messages? It's not universally encrypted either. No way am I turning it on.
- unstatusthequo 3y agoIt will end up like home IoT crap. Zigbee, Zwave, Matter, ten other shits… GL with this
- 3y ago
- trynumber9 3y agoThe EU should, like they did years ago with PC operating systems, mandate a default browser selection screen. And a default messenger selection screen. And a default app store selection screen. Not that we'd get it in the US but it would help reduce Apple/Google market capture efforts.
- gafage 3y ago>And a default messenger selection screen. What for? Everybody in the EU already uses whatsapp. That shows how unnecessary these selection screens are.
- i5-2520M 3y agoIncorrect meme, almost no one is on whatsapp in Hungary for example. We use Messenger, Viber mainly and other social media apps that have a chat feature.
- gafage 3y agoSo basically you are making my own argument: we use tons of different apps. What would be the selection screen useful for? Going further: if we download different messengers, it stands to reason we can download different browsers, therefore if safari is the most used it's because it's the one we choose.
- School-Cotton 3y agoCommon case of people seeing that something is common in Western Europe and Latin America and then claiming “the U.S. is the only country that doesn’t do X”. Happens all the time.
- 3836293648 3y agoThat's assuming Europe is way more homogeneus that it is. I have never heard of anyone using whatsapp in Sweden
- not2b 3y agoThat's probably why Apple will get away with keeping iMessage closed (unless the US government pushes them), probably not enough European use to count as a gatekeeper.
- mh8h 3y agoAn open source client for iMessage is going to be used for fraud and spam. Before this, a device being blocked by Apple because it was used for fraud or spam would increase the cost of business for fraudsters and spammers. But now it's a matter of picking a new phone number. Of course Apple would try hard to stop this.
- Banditoz 3y agoIs spam a good reason for Apple to keep their iMessage garden exclusive? SMS is also widely used for spam.
- StressedDev 3y ago[flagged]
- freedomben 3y agoBeeper doesn't give you iMessage. It just makes you appear as a "blue bubble" to people who are on iMessage.
- robertoandred 3y agoA blue bubble = iMessage. If it's green, you're not on iMessage.
- MBCook 3y agoThat’s what blue bubble means. You’re talking through the iMessage service.
- nickpeterson 3y agoSo basically it helps make it harder to sort out if something is spam.. All my SMS spam is green bubbles.
- Jtsummers 3y ago> It just makes you appear as a "blue bubble" to people who are on iMessage. Received messages on iPhones show up as neither blue nor green. They always have a gray background. The blue and green bubbles are the colors of the messages sent by the iPhone users on their own phones. Recipients, on other iPhones, will see messages with a gray background regardless of whether it was sent with iMessage or SMS/MMS.
- KomoD 3y agoThis is what Snazzy Labs said about Beeper Mini... hilarious: > This doesn't appear to be some easy thing Apple can just turn off. > It will require a complete redesign of their entire authentication and delivery strategy for not just iMessage but Apple ID account access as a whole.
- znpy 3y agoThe guy is a fine youtuber but i think he was talking about stuff outside of his area of competence wrt to this specific matter.
- IMTDb 3y agoUsually the correct course of action is to just... say nothing then ? Or at least take some caution. But hey, it makes for a less sensationalist headline. The thing is that trustworthiness is typically something you look for in a reviewer, clearly not something that can be found there.
- acherion 3y agoSay nothing? They can't do that, what else are they going to talk about in the next video that they have to release to appease the Youtube Algorithm?! /s obviously!
- znpy 3y ago> Usually the correct course of action is to just... say nothing then ? literally yes, that is the correct course of action. the issue is that you cannot publish videos and make money if you refrain from talking about stuff you don't really understand. which is one of the problems with modern society, in general.
- aaomidi 3y agoTo be fair, this could be a heuristic based ban which wouldn’t be too hard to bypass. It’ll be interesting if beeper mini ends up bypassing it.
- 3y ago
- throw310822 3y agoDo sms/mms received from iMessage users on Android look anything in particular? Because a possible move for Google would be to reject them by default in some future version (hm hm, "security reasons"). End of "yes you're still in but you look like a cripple" and begin of "this app doesn't allow me to talk to that person, if I want to reach him I need to switch to something that supports Android".
- School-Cotton 3y agoIf they tried that in the US basically everyone on android would switch to iOS the next day.
- robertoandred 3y agoiMessage doesn't send SMS/MMS messages.
- kstrauser 3y agoOf course it does.
- meepmorp 3y agoiMessage does not send SMS or MMS. SMS messaging is a feature of the mobile network, and they're sent directly from the device to the carrier SMSC without going through Apple's servers. You might be confusing iMessage with Messages. The former is a messaging platform, the latter is an app that can send messages either via iMessage or SMS (assuming a mobile device, or pairing with an iPhone).
- MBCook 3y agoYou think it would be a good idea for android to reject all SMSes?
- throw310822 3y agoNo, obviously not, that's why I specified "if it's possible to tell apart those coming from iMessage".
- MuffinFlavored 3y agoIt lasted 3 days? :)
- MBCook 3y agoSurprisingly long, really. I expected it to die much faster.
- gnicholas 3y agoMaybe Apple was waiting for a Friday afternoon to issue their update.
- quickthrower2 3y agoYou could do a few OpenAI hokey pokeys in that time.
- dmillar 3y agoAs usual, Gruber was right on the money. Via Threads yesterday: "My prediction is that Apple will make changes—fixing bugs and/or closing loopholes—that break Beeper Mini. It’s untenable that there’s unsanctioned client software for a messaging platform for which privacy and security are a primary feature. It’s a very nice app, remarkably clever, and for now works like a charm, but if Apple wanted an iMessage client for Android they’d release an iMessage client for Android. Seems irresponsible for Beeper to charge a subscription for an unsupported service." https://www.threads.net/@gruber/post/C0k1VgyMGZN?hl=en https://www.threads.net/@gruber/post/C0k1VgyMGZN?hl=en
- goodluckchuck 3y agoIt looks to me like there is an advantageous business relationship between Beeper and their customers. As a general rule, Apple is free to change their programs and how they work. However, I think there’s a plausible argument for tortious interference here if the sole purpose was to prevent interoperability.
- School-Cotton 3y agoAre you a lawyer because Apple stopping third parties from using their service being in any way illegal sounds extremely hard to believe
- MBCook 3y ago> The CFAA prohibits intentionally accessing a computer without authorization or in excess of authorization, but fails to define what “without authorization” means. - From the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers Other way around. If anything, it sounds to me like Beeper Mini was acting illegally by accessing Apple’s servers in a way they didn’t give permission for. The CFAA is ripe for abuse. I’m not saying applying it here would be just or not, only that Apple likely wasn’t the one acting illegally.
- bee_rider 3y ago
- ComputerGuru 3y agoThis was why I never shared my iMessage for Windows: https://neosmart.net/blog/imessage-for-windows/ https://neosmart.net/blog/imessage-for-windows/ They’d block an account out of spite without a second thought.
- Shawnj2 3y agoDoes it still work?
- ComputerGuru 3y agoStill using it daily.
- nchase 3y agoLove this. Congrats and thank you for the writeup!
- Hackbraten 3y agoThis is amazing. Truly a labor of love. Kudos to you for accomplishing this, and then polishing it to perfection. Good on you to withhold it, as proved again today. I’m so glad that I finally left the Apple ecosystem.
- graphe 3y agoLoved your post, thanks for sharing!
- froggertoaster 3y agoYour article was the first I thought of when Beeper Mini was released. I knew it had already been done by you and never saw the light of day for a reason!
- Grustaf 3y ago> "if Apple truly cares about the privacy and security of their own iPhone users, why would they stop a service that enables their own users to now send encrypted messages to Android users, rather than using unsecure SMS?" - Eric Migicovsky 1. If Apple sees this as a gap, it is very obvious that they would address that themselves, rather than by allowing a hack to exploit loopholes in their architecture 2. Since Apple has no control over the Beeper mini client, they would not consider it safe, it could easily be spying on users without their knowledge.
- CivBase 3y ago> 2. Since Apple has no control over the Beeper mini client, they would not consider it safe, it could easily be spying on users without their knowledge. Since I have no control over iMessage, I would not consider it safe. It could easily be spying on me without my knowledge.
- diligiant 3y agoThe basic assumption here is trusting Apple, provided that numerous security researchers have access to the platform. If you don't trust Apple, don't buy their products.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 3y agoIt’s a two party marketplace. Even if I don’t like Apple, the alternative is not great either.
- judge2020 3y ago"they would not consider it safe" is from Apple's perspective, which is the only thing that matters when Apple is the steward of legally and technically enforcing who can use their APIs.
- CivBase 3y agoSure. They have every right to do what they're doing. I'm just mocking Apple because I think their implication that they're the only trustworthy entity is ridiculous. We have no reason to trust them any more than we do Beeper or any other company. If Apple actually cared about security they'd implement an open protocol that is provably secure. Imagine if they supported something like Matrix. But that's clearly not their primary concern here. It's just a convenient excuse to maintain their walled garden.
- doctoboggan 3y agoMy guess is Beeper calculated this was likely to happen eventually (maybe not this fast), but that they would get good press on the initial launch and on the shutdown announcement and that press would be worth the technical investment they made. They do have a different service they still offer and some percentage of people are looking at that now.
- evbogue 3y agoYah, this is a great runway to launch a chat app with real encryption.
- jeroenhd 3y agoThey already sell a wide ecosystem based on Matrix. The whole point of this app was to connect without relying on Matrix bridges.
- etrautmann 3y agoI find this a bit confusing though. It seems like this was an inevitable outcome, but what do they gain from this technical investment aside from exposure. Their website doesn't steer users to anything other than the now cut-off Beeper mini?
- MBCook 3y agoExposure is something. The fact the developer had the chops to do this is now on the public record. That could be very valuable for getting a job or a college scholarship (since they’re in HS).
- yellow_lead 3y agoAre you referring to the developer of the GitHub project they bought or the Beeper Mini devs?
- MBCook 3y ago
- neilv 3y agoOf course, open standards are part of the answer. Even if Apple would permit something like Beeper Mini for now, that would not only relieve demand for actual open standards efforts, but also put more people at the mercy of Apple. (This is not a new idea. For example, every time I see another open source project push people to Discord for support/discussion/community, I make a big sad and disappointed face.)
- 123sereusername 3y agoWhy not just use signal?
- wffurr 3y agoNo one is stopping you and everyone you know from switching to Signal. You can even use Beeper (Cloud) as a client if you don’t mind using a relay. They also had plans to extend Beeper Mini to support Signal and other e2e encrypted chat apps with no relay.
- mrweasel 3y agoThis comes up in just about any conversation regarding iMessage, and it's pretty out of touch with the real world. Apple backed iMessage into the same app that does SMS, so you can't not use that app, SMS is still relevant. So iPhone users are going to use that app. Now imagine that 90% of your friends and family use iMessage, but not by some deliberate choice, but because they just view it as fancy text messaging. How on earth are you going to convince all those people that they should download Signal, WhatsApp or Telegram? The answer is that you don't. You might get a few people who already use Signal to start contacting you that way, but the rest... they aren't going to install yet another app just because you don't like iMessage, and when SMS still works just fine. But now you're excluded from all group chats and videos or largish images.
- blindriver 3y agoAs someone in tech, I think it's awesome they were able to find a way into iMessage. As an iPhone user, I hate the idea that spammers can now use iMessage, and I'm glad the service was taken down. Both things can be true at once.
- makeitdouble 3y agoWon't spammers just continue using the macos bridged other services instead of the direct to Apple way ?
- MBCook 3y agoWhat do you mean? There are no services bridged to iMessage.
- 1123581321 3y agoHe refers to Mac apps like AirMessage that relay information from iMessage’s SQLite database or control the screen, and are connected to a messages app on Android.
- tredre3 3y agoBeeper Cloud, their other product, does exactly this... https://help.beeper.com/en_US/chat-networks/imessage https://help.beeper.com/en_US/chat-networks/imessage
- mh8h 3y agoIf they have to use real Apple hardware, and those devices are blocklisted by Apple when the spam is reported, spamming stays cost prohibitive.
- nomel 3y agoI also assume there are iMessage rate limits in place, that if exceeded, trigger some analysis. If that's true, then hardware costs would also be proportional to rate. I suspect there's some dark market for broken iPhones, and perhaps some rate limit for activations within a city block/building. The last time I had iMessage spam was years ago, so maybe it's not so practical.
- bastard_op 3y agoI knew that was going to happen, it's become a status symbol of like good vs. bad, the blue vs. green. Its become like a racial slur the blue vs. green, and that's exactly what Apple wants to sell cellphones. You can't contact the cool kids until you have a blue bubble, that means you're like, cool or something. You can message me if you can afford an iphone apparently.
- meepmorp 3y ago> Its become like a racial slur the blue vs. green Take a moment to say this out loud to yourself, so you can hear how fucking ridiculous it sounds. Notwithstanding the trivialization of actual racism, it's just a throughly silly statement.
- z7 3y agoThis is a wake-up call. It's high time we demand open-source messaging standards across all platforms. Imagine a world where communication isn't dictated by corporate interests but by user needs and innovation.
- madeofpalk 3y agoThere actually a bunch of competition for messaging apps, which put forward user needs and drives innovation though.
- schrodinger 3y agoApple is probably the company that most has my interests at heart: they're very privacy focused, masterful at encryption and making it simple, and makes products I love. Do you really think they're the worlds most valuable company because of "corporate interests" and not because people like their products?
- doublerabbit 3y ago> Apple is probably the company that most has my interests at heart: they're very privacy focused, masterful at encryption and making it simple, and makes products I love. Apple is a business, they have no users interests at heart. They may be very privacy focused, and maybe masterful at encryption but for sure they do not make products I love. Their instant change of UI, forceful updates and territoriality behaviour are some of the toxic behaviours that drive me mad. As the same of Google. After Google banning my email for "non-inclusive" reasons wolfcub@gmail.com when I was 17, I will never return. So within mobile, while only real alternative is Apple. Apart from my computer which is FreeBSD which will soon to be Haiku once it matures. I just couldn't get everything working with OpenIndiana and how I wanted it to be.
- schrodinger 3y agoWe can all have our preferences. But I love having a very fast laptop that lasts 18 hours on a single charge, for under $1,000, with a high-dpi screen. My Macbook Air M1 is a product I and a lot of people love.
- StressedDev 3y agoOne thing which is really confusing is why are Android users obsessed with iMessage? Android users can send text messages to iPhones, the can call iPhone users, and they can use third party messaging apps to communicate with iPhone users. It really isn’t clear to me why so many people are so angry they cannot use iMessage on Android.
- LordDragonfang 3y agoBecause I want the pictures and videos my iPhone-using parents send me to not be crunched to shit, and I'm not going through the effort of teaching non-technical users to use a different messaging client. Same with the group chats that my partner's extended family keep including me in.
- MBCook 3y agoApple announced RCS support. That will provide what you want.
- LordDragonfang 3y agoRight, but that's likely not coming out for another year yet, and requires everyone involved to update their phones (yet another hassle for non-technical users, they will put updates off for as long as they can). As the quote in the article says, Apple clearly recognizes the issue, and beeper mini fixes it now, not "at some point in the future".
- cqqxo4zV46cp 3y agoGetting someone to update their iPhone is a matter of them not actively dismissing iOS’s repeated attempts at updating itself. This isn’t a good-faith argument.
- badwolf 3y agoI've personally found Apple users are some of the quickest to install updates/upgrades in bulk/mass. I think one of the key reasons, other than apple sending push notifications that it's going to automatically install overnight, is they bundle candy/goodies to entice users to update asap - Want the new emojis so your friends stop sending you scary black boxes with an x over it? Update now.
- tedunangst 3y agoI was told this was impossible. What happened?
- nickorlow 3y agoI'm guessing the binary they use from Apple (IMDAppleServices) to generate part of the registration information probably adds metadata to the "validation blob" that gets sent to apple when registering beeper mini as an iMessage device. If the metadata includes the OS version, Apple probably blacklisted any new devices registered in the past few days with validation blobs generated from that binary. (The binary was sourced from OS X 10.8 which is ~11 years old now)
- threeseed 3y agoMy suspicion is this is going to be a cat-mouse situation for a while. Apple would've found some easy way to identify these users and Beeper will likely release a patch to fix it.
- nickorlow 3y agoAgreed. I think Apple wins easily though. If they can break it once a month for a day or two, I think that makes it inconvenient for beeper mini users. Maybe not though, who knows
- winterqt 3y agoIt doesn't look like that binary is used for Beeper Mini, unlike pypush: https://blog.beeper.com/p/how-beeper-mini-works https://blog.beeper.com/p/how-beeper-mini-works
- nickorlow 3y agoI wouldn't be surprised if whatever they reverse engineered from the binary had similar behavior
- rickreynoldssf 3y agoI'm not sure what was expected after they reverse engineered a private API and used it.
- tantalor 3y agoBlue bubbles is not a business model.
- hellotomyrars 3y agoFor third parties at the mercy of Apple? No. For Apple? Demonstrably so. Apple has stated as much in court filings against Epic. This is largely an American trend, third party messengers are much more popular outside of the US as the defacto standard, Apple sees clear value in the blue bubble.
- cirrus3 3y agoBuilding a startup around this neat trick was always as doomed. It is incredible the amount of delusion they would have needed to assume this was sustainable. Edit: not a whole company, just a side project within a company I guess. Still, seems like a waste of time/effort to have even attempted.
- circuit10 3y agoWhile I do wish this was allowed I think it’s pretty clear that using Apple’s iMessage servers without permission is probably not legal
- anigbrowl 3y agoThe security argument is all very well, but I don't care for iMessage distinction between iP* users and Android/others. It reminds me of Jane Elliot's experiments*. Reinforcing your brand identity by structuring the private conversations of your users is weird and somewhat creepy. *https://ca.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/osi04.soc.ush.civil.divided1/a-class-divided-1-the-daring-lesson/ https://ca.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/osi04.soc.ush.civil...
- justin_oaks 3y agoThanks for sharing the link about Jane Elliot's classroom lessons. I only learned about this today.
- benreesman 3y agoI’ll give a fuck one way or the other when shifting capital markets don’t make it a Wozniak moment to participate at all. Ranking how much it’s all captured and handed out to buds and pre-IPO AirBnB stock funded. Snooze. Call me when you want to knock this thing over.
- g42gregory 3y agoThis is what monopolies (or duopolies) usually do. Basically, they can do whatever they like in the market. I think that the antitrust enforcement is critical in a “free” market. But neither parties would do it. I am guessing Democrats think that they can get some benefits from Apple’s control. And Republicans are simply paid off. The consumers end up bearing a brunt of it.
- cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago[flagged]
- Arch485 3y agoSmall correction: Republicans _and_ democrats get paid off. Both groups are made up of politicians, after all.
- gigatexal 3y agoAbsolutely hilarious. Did people actually think this was going to be allowed? iMessage is a huge moat and only an act of Congress or a case verdict will force their hand. Maybe the EU legislation might.
- jeroenhd 3y agoApple and the EU don't agree on iMessage's status as a gatekeeper. Apple's argument is that it doesn't have the required amount of users (10% of EU population/10k business users). If they're right and Apple doesn't have the user base, the EU gatekeeper laws won't have an effect on iMessage.
- sbuk 3y ago> Maybe the EU legislation might. Why? iMessage simply does not have the market share enjoyed by WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger or Telegram EU-wide. iMessage was temporarily removed from the DMA in September and noises coming out of the commission favour Apple's stance that it is simply not big enough to warrant inclusion as a gatekeeper for messaging apps.
- thomastjeffery 3y agoThose lucky bastards... If the EU won't solve America's problems for us, who will?
- SirMaster 3y agoSo does this also now break iMessage for older iOS devices too? I thought someone said something about that to block beeper mini, Apple would have to also block older iOS devices as that’s the method they were using that wasn’t as locked down.
- SparkyMcUnicorn 3y agoLooks like iMessage stopped working on my hackintosh...
- usui 3y agoYour Hackintosh is not working properly not because of this reason, then. Or if it is because of this, then it's not blanket-wide and it's based on generic model-based identifiers or heuristics. iMessage still works.
- SilverBirch 3y agoThere's been a lot of speculation about this, and in principle it's correct. At the end of the day Beeper can work to spoof genuine devices until its indistinguishable from an old iPhone and to block it Apple would essentially have to either force push an update to every device and enforce its installation (they probably can't/won't do this). But in reality Beeper probably leaks a load of data to Apple that Apple can use to block it and it's just a cat and mouse game between Beeper bringing in new workaround vs Apple blocking whatever they notice abusing the system. It really just depends how motivated Apple is to chase this down, and the low cost way for Apple to chase this down is.... to sue Beeper. Beeper might actually be able to outsmart them over time in engineering, but they sure as hell can't outspend them on lawyers.
- sneak 3y agoIt’s end users connecting to Apple’s APNS API endpoints, not Beeper. Apple can try suing Beeper for publishing software, but ultimately software (that doesn’t infringe trademarks or copyrights) is protected expression.
- 3y ago
- dishsoap 3y agoI for one am shocked
- llm_nerd 3y agoThis was the obvious outcome. People were being willfully blind about how this "hack" works. Using an exfiltrated binary they used its blackbox functions to perform a sort of device attestation using ripped Apple device identifiers. Clearly Apple simply needs to blacklist any device attestation that this service uses, which is obviously trivial. These aren't just RNGs they're fabricating, they're sets of legitimate Apple device data that isn't plainly evident to any random user-mode app. Why would they block it? Every service has some sort of gate on who can message or it will be overrun by bad actors and spammers. Signal, Telegram and others make you validate your cell phone number -- there's a finite number of those, and they can blacklist them as necessary. Online services make you validate an email, do bot checks, etc. Beeper, and more importantly the technique they used, offers none of those gates. It was a plainly problematic free for all that was guaranteed to be closed.
- asylteltine 3y agoThis is actually a great point I didn’t originally consider. People could easily infiltrate the iMessage fort with spam and other stuff which at the moment requires a genuine Apple device.
- spullara 3y agoI'm pretty sure some of the spam I am getting was using this vector. Hopefully it kills it now.
- ysofunny 3y agothat's one of the reasons they're doing this but I don't think it's their main reason, if anything I see that argument as convenient posturing which aids in covering the uglier underlying reasons
- singpolyma3 3y agoStill need a valid phone number with a SIM that can do the special SMS needed for this, so it's hardly going to produce a big spam farm too fast.
- busymom0 3y agoThis reddit comment is exactly what I thought when I first saw this: > The sheer fucking hubris of these clowns to charge a subscription to forge device identifiers and transfer data through Apple's servers for users that have in no way actually paid Apple for that service and then say "there's no way they can shut us down!" https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/18dy7ip/apple_has_seemingly_found_a_way_to_block_androids/kck743a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/18dy7ip/apple_has_se...
- gardenhedge 3y agoI am very surprised that Beeper is a company with a CEO and everything. It's a hack on top of other services! This was always going to be the end result. Also, the whole use case is funny to me since everyone in my country (including iPhone users) use WhatsApp.
- russelg 3y agoWhere is the hacker spirit here? The number of Apple apologists that have crawled out to say "see? I told you so!!" is saddening. It is a bit dicey when you're charging for it, but since Mini was entirely client-side it would be feasible for a free version to exist. Apple claims iMessage is E2EE, do we have proof they aren't siphoning the messages from the client once it's been decrypted? The level of trust we have to have for Apple is approximately the same for any other iMessage client. Obviously Mini was using the encryption properly else it wouldn't have worked to begin with. Of course, it's very unlikely Apple is doing that. Just putting the thought out there. One other point raised that I saw was about how iMessage costs Apple money to run, and non-product owners should not have access since they haven't contributed. This falls apart if you own any Apple devices. Myself for example owns a Macbook, but an Android phone. Am I not allowed to use iMessage? I paid the toll.
- kmbfjr 3y agoYou are allowed, you get to use your iCloud account.
- runnerup 3y agoI remember another post that was very well-received where an individual hacker wrote his own homebrew iMessage client for his own personal purposes. HN really liked that! I think HN exists at an intersection of individual hackerism and business. If a project is clearly by-hackers-for-hackers it gets a lot more leeway for unsustainable concepts / implementations. But this is building a business on adversarial interoperability, and many people who LOVE the concept and technical achievements will still post mostly critical things about the business model because it’s fairly clearly a very very challenging business model.
- pilsetnieks 3y agoYou're allowed to admire the technical implementation while denouncing the business model at the same time.
- jorvi 3y ago
- bluedays 3y agoI'm probably leaping to conclusions here but I think this is going to end up in court, and that was beeper's intention to begin with. It just seems way too easy to block so they had to know this was going to happen.
- mattbee 3y agoApple could have been a lot meaner about this. If they really wanted to discourage 3rd-party clients they could just _subtly_ break them for users of Beeper Mini: Late messages. Truncated messages. A blue bubble that slowly turns brown. The wrong font. Zalgo text.
- sgjohnson 3y agoThat’s something that Microsoft would do in the 90s. Apple’s MO clearly is breaking something and refusing to elaborate further.
- tetrisgm 3y agoReminder that BlueBubbles and AirMessage both are working and fairly robust. I've used them daily over a year. The downside being that they need a Mac and iPhone to run. But in the spirit of self hosting, you do run the server yourself and don't share your credentials. I don't see a more viable path in the near future.
- meepmorp 3y ago> The downside being that they need a Mac and iPhone to run. Then why would anyone use BlueBubbles? If you already need the hardware, and presumably an Apple account, what advage would there be? Legitimately curious.
- tetrisgm 3y agoWell I use a Samsung Fold 4 as my daily phone. I want imessage too. I use a cheap iPhone 8 and Mac Mini to get the feature.
- FridgeSeal 3y agoIs anyone genuinely surprised by this? My mate and I had a bet on how long this would take (since the thread the other day), my guess of “3 weeks tops” was far too generous.
- lxe 3y agoHope they don't go after Beeper "cloud" version.
- m3kw9 3y agoJust look one step ahead, they got the attention on their names and company, it was all expected. The play was to be first to donut and get lots of new. Apple allowing it to work means pigs fly
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mjg59 3y agoFor those arguing that this is a privacy or security response: the first pypush commit was in April, with the first working demo commit at the beginning of May. If it's a security or privacy issue, that means it's been exploited for over 6 months without Apple taking action. How many other iMessage conversations have already ended up in non-Apple clients? Why didn't Apple notice until there was a big public splash about it? (edit: typo)
- AndrewKemendo 3y agoSay it with your chest: Building an application on someone else’s platform means they control your product Doesn’t matter that “we all know that” this will continue to happen as long as closed platforms are the only thing people are incentivized to build/use.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- INGSOCIALITE 3y agoi will never understand the absolute hatred people have toward imessage. it's an app that runs on apples platform, for apple users. people can still communicate or text between android and apple. if you want inter-OS encryption then use whatsapp or signal or whatever the hip new thing is today. apple owes nothing to anyone. they have created an ecosystem for their walled / gated devices that works extremely well. they don't have to let anyone else play in their pool. this is really about blue bubbles vs green bubbles, it's the most asinine thing to waste thought on.
- angry_octet 3y agoInevitable, and correct of Apple to do so.
- ipcress_file 3y agoI remember the webOS iTunes fiasco. This kind of thing isn't worth the waste of your time.
- sotix 3y agoI would love to see hackers continue making it viable to use iMessage on Android until Apple concedes and launches their own client. Sometimes you have to ruffle some feathers to enact change.
- resters 3y agoMy iPhone receives dozens of robocalls per week yet Apple blocks Beeper Mini in a few days! Each of those calls use my minutes, battery life, voicemail, time, etc.
- diebeforei485 3y agoOf all the text message spam I receive, 100% of them has been green bubbles. I don't want spam in my blue bubbles.
- chatmasta 3y agoI get a fair amount of iMessage spam, which always disturbs me because does the sender get a confirmation it was delivered to an iMessage account such that I'm tagged as an Apple user?
- diebeforei485 3y agoI disabled the setting where people can send me iMessages using my email address.
- mgh2 3y agoBeeper video reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S24TDRxEna4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S24TDRxEna4
- jamesdepp 3y agoI feel like this could be a part of a weird plan to trap Apple into an antitrust lawsuit about iMessage. Beeper's CEO has been claiming that the existence of Beeper Mini actually improves iPhone users' experiences. He could argue that Apple shutting off access is not meant to improve Apple users' experiences, but rather, to keep people off of Android. Honestly, I have mixed feelings. I REALLY think that iMessage needs to be opened up, but this was not the way to do it. Really hoping the EU swoops in and saves the day here.
- aslilac 3y agoit’s absolutely the right way to do it. third party clients are a dying breed, because people have forgotten why they’re necessary.
- hu3 3y agoiMessage is mostly a US problem. EU usage of iMessage is minimal compared to WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal and Facebook Messenger. So there's little incentive for EU to get involved.
- Ytuns 3y agoThe EU is not saving the day in America this time around. iMessage will reportedly dodge EU regulations, won’t have to open up https://arstechnica.com/apple/2023/12/imessage-will-reportedly-dodge-eu-regulations-wont-have-to-open-up/ https://arstechnica.com/apple/2023/12/imessage-will-reported...
- _8j50 3y agoPersonally I don't want anything to do with a google device, so on the other end as a recipient I am glad apple did this swiftly. But I applaud and encourage people to try and get around it, perhaps they might even help find vulns in imessage.
- chatmasta 3y agoI'm pretty sure this quote from the founder is wrong on multiple levels: > “That means that anytime you text your Android friends, anyone can read the message. Apple can read the message. Your phone carrier can read the message. Google… literally, it’s just like a postcard. Anyone can read it. So Beeper Mini actually increases the security of iPhones,” he [the founder of Beeper] had told TechCrunch. The phone carrier can read the contents of the unencrypted SMS. But the contents of the message never traverse Apple or Google networks. If an iPhone user's device attempts to send an iMessage, and it fails to send, then the device falls back to sending an SMS via the cellular network (actually, it's not even a fallback - the user needs to long-press the message and resend it as an SMS). The content of the message never reaches Apple because the device never sends it to them. It doesn't even send the encrypted content because it wasn't able to exchange keys. I'm not even sure it sends the unencrypted phone number of the recipient to Apple... And certainly, no part of the message is ever sent to Google's network... that doesn't even make sense. Now, maybe he's arguing "Apple can see it because they control the operating system," but that's a ridiculous argument because you may as well say they can access every iMessage too...
- wkipling 3y agoPush notifications
- chatmasta 3y agoAre you sure? So if I disable cellular data, I won't receive a notification for an incoming SMS? I would assume that text message notifications are generated locally on the device when it receives an SMS message.
- yellow_lead 3y agoSMS doesn't go through APNS, that's not how cellphones work.
- sneak 3y agoAll of the SMSes that iPhone users send and receive are backed up nightly automatically via iCloud Backup, which is NOT end to end encrypted, and is completely readable by Apple. They provide it to the US government without a warrant frequently, something like data on over 70,000 users each year (per their own annual transparency report). The number is even bigger if you include the times they turn it over with warrants. The iCloud Backup also includes the “Messages in iCloud” cross-device synchronization keys, so it is indeed true that Apple can read all of the iMessages. It’s not end to end encryption if the endpoint devices sync their endpoint keys to the middle transit service. Apple’s own knowledge base article HT202303 is very clear on these points. Note also that enabling e2ee for iCloud (currently opt in, and very buggy) does not protect you, as everyone else you iMessage with is escrowing their keys to Apple in their backups, so Apple can still read all of your iMessages from the other end of the conversations even if you enable e2ee on your backup.
- voongoto 3y agoStopped using beeper when random bearded dude appeared randomly in my private facebook group chat. And he’s not even in that group. Then, checkedy fb logins and saw some weird google pixel 4 logged in somewhere in the states. Deleted beeper and not using again ever
- npalenchar 3y agoNo one is surprised at all by this, right?
- smeej 3y agoSometimes I think this whole "blue bubble" thing is a gigantic opt-in psych experiment about how biases like racism can start absolutely anywhere.
- azubinski 3y agoFirst you need to infantilize them to the level of “I’m ready to do anything to be in their gang.” But at the same time, you need to feed snobbery so that you get a safe mixture of 80% immaturity and 20% snobbery. Let’s add two drops of self-deprecation, that boring feeling of “I don’t have blue bubbles, I’m worthless and a loser.” And now you can take a large bag for money and leave it open - they will fill it themselves, tie it and send it to the address :)
- garysahota93 3y agoWhat if they create a version of Beeper Mini that spoofs an apple device you own? For example: I don't want to own an iPhone, but I do have a MacBook. So rather than use a randomly generated device that tricks Apple's servers to allow me to connect, I can just use a device a legitimately own (and just trick apple to think my phone is my laptop). I know this won't work for everyone (especially folks that don't have an Apple device). But this might be better than losing the app all together ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (PS - I don't know much about how Beeper Mini's reverse engineering worked. Just going off what I believe I understood)
- eiiot 3y agoThis already exists! https://airmessage.org https://airmessage.org
- jaktet 3y agoI was using this before beeper and switched to beeper since I could also use WhatsApp on my iPad. Worked just fine on an old otherwise unused MacBook Air I keep in my garage. I only used airmessage for iMessage on windows
- _fzslm 3y agonot quite what the parent comment was referring to - AirMessage is cool but needs a server Mac to run 24/7. parent is asking if it’s possible to spoof the secure identifiers from the Mac in Beeper - extracting the secure IDs, inputting them into Beeper - at which point Beeper can communicate directly with Apple as if it is that Mac. a clever workaround!
- garysahota93 3y agoPrecisely! Would be a cool workaround & I would be completely happy with this approach (vs losing access all together). But I wonder if that’d even be possible. I hope someone from the Beeper team sees this!
- benkarst 3y agoSo they built an entire company betting that little old Apple wouldn't mind hacking a proprietary protocol? Hmm.
- satchlj 3y agoBeeper Cloud has also been cut off, even though they are running virtual MacOS machines for every Beeper Cloud user... not sure how they managed that
- poundtown 3y agoshocker.. be serious youre never going to out wit apple. esp if u have the nerve to charge for it.
- pradn 3y agoWhat’s between the lines is that iMessage is critical as a way to lock in users to iOS. People care about security somewhat but they care way more about being ostracized for having green bubbles. I bet few common users could tell you the security properties of major messaging apps. This app, if allowed, would have shaved off a parentage points off iPhone market share.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Aeolun 3y agoTo the surprise of absolutely no-one. Seriously, what did they think was going to happen?
- quickthrower2 3y agoMaybe this. 2 HN blow ups in a week. Any publicity as they say…
- mlindner 3y agoHow did these guys raise $16M? Do the VCs have no understanding of things? The round was apparently led by the CEO of Y Combinator. Makes no sense.
- howenterprisey 3y agoSeems to be back now for original beeper, although not yet for beeper mini, the app in question (beeper ceo just sent out a global message). Your move, Apple...
- lstamour 3y agoLatest updates from Beeper as of two hours ago: ### Beeper Mini - fix coming soon Our fix for Beeper Mini is still in the works. It’s very close, and just a matter of a bit more time and effort. In the meantime, we have deregistered your phone numbers from iMessage so your friends can still text you. Sorry, you’re temporarily a green bubble again. Annoyingly, the iPhone Messages app ‘remembers’ that you were a blue bubble for 6-24 hours before falling back to SMS, so it’s possible that some messages will not be delivered during this period. Also, we are extending your 7 day trial by one additional week. I just want to say thank you for bearing with us through this wild day (week!). I feel awful about important messages you may have missed today because our iMessage connection stopped working. My sincere apologies for this. Tomorrow is a new day. Onwards! ### Beeper Cloud - iMessage works again! I am very proud to say that iMessage is now working again on Beeper Cloud. After a Herculean effort from my amazing colleagues, our iMessage bridge is back in action. Unfortunately, messages received during the outage are not recoverable. If you have a Mac or iPhone, you may see an alert that a new device has been added to your account. This due to the bridge update. The update is rolling out over the next hour. And...it's not working for everyone yet. We're going to call it a night and get back to it tomorrow.
- raverbashing 3y agoThis green bubble/blue bubble crap is too much ado about nothing Just use literally any other messaging app
- bobse 3y ago[dead]
- KingOfCoders 3y agoPredictable comments. If Facebook does it, uhhh evil. If Apple does it, right so!
- realusername 3y agoA bit sad but that's Apple we're talking here, we all know how despicable they are.
- devaiops9001 3y ago[flagged]
- Hackbraten 3y agoAre you twelve?
- devaiops9001 3y agoI can configure and deploy "enterprise wide" public key infrastructure (TLS certificates) with client certificates backed by smartcards embedded in employee badges. So there's that.
- tibbydudeza 3y agoUsing the same device serial number and not having Apple onboard was bound to end up like this. Epic Games tried the same thing with Fortnite to force Apple's hand, it worked in the court but Apple only bends to laws of the land. I don't see the big deal over iMessage - we use WhatsApp for chats in our family and it is cross platform.
- Wild23 3y ago[flagged]
- aizyuval 3y agoGood advertisement for beeper. Now we'll see if they're true.
- kbenson 3y agoThe way Beeper-mini addressed the "criticism" that Apple would shut them down in their show HN post to me seemed like their were either completely naive, or far more likely that they understood that it would only last a short time and that it was all a PR stunt to get you to notice their product and become a user to try it out, and maybe switch to it. It's not bad marketing strategy at all, I'm sure they gained a huge number of new users, and some percentage of them will stick around even without iMessage support (because there's not really someone else to switch to), but it seemed a bit too manipulative for my personal taste. They could have just said "try us out and see if you like us, we'll keep iMessage support going as long as we can" but instead they dodged the question entirely.
- pat64 3y agoThis immediately reminded me of the Palm Pre iTunes/iPod protocol reverse engineering debacle from the oughts. It became a game of whackamole where by Palm would update their OS (RIP WebOS) to reintroduce support for iTunes to their devices and Apple would bend over backwards to break it again. Did Beeper not anticipate that this was inevitably coming and put fallbacks and rotational serial numbers in place if Apple start getting blocky?
- methuselah_in 3y agoHow can someone has thought, they will create a app that can work with apple messages and they can make it able to work with android? Now they disconnected the access.You will never be allowed to have money over apple or google. Choose XMPP, it will reach there. who needs blue green bubbles lol.
- maxdo 3y agoRCS will be on iPhone next year . Problem solved
- irdc 3y agoThis is likely going to be buried, but: now Bleeper has standing to argue that Apple, as owner of the largest mobile messaging platform in the US, is a monopolist.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jonplackett 3y agoMost predictable headline award goes to…
- faverin 3y agoJesus i'm old. This happened twenty years ago with the ICQ/Yahoo/MSN messenger wars. Everything old does become new again. I wish Congress and the EU figured this out with crypto expert advice - surely we can have apps that only show you the recent messages or something. All on phone so secure but convenient. A/S/L anyone? +5 Insightful Some links for the befuddled An overview: This made the front page https://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/24/business/in-cyberspace-rivals-skirmish-over-messaging.html https://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/24/business/in-cyberspace-ri... https://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/oct/13/yahoo.digitalmedia https://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/oct/13/yahoo.digitalm... A delightful internal MS assembly hacking rivals message apps interview. https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-19/essays/chat-wars/ https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-19/essays/chat-wars/
- jFriedensreich 3y agoWe finally need a giant lawsuit and final verdict to end messenger lock ins. This has been going on for nearly a decade now and all started with facebebook and google closing their xmpp apis. I just hope that the EU Digital Market Act interoperability requirements have teeth and we can finally get some freedom.
- ben_w 3y agoThis may explain why I got my first ever "who dis?" iMessage yesterday, from an unknown number, on a device with cellular switched off.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- TheMagicHorsey 3y agoWhat if people ran their own local gateway that forwarded messages to a third party message broker?
- Melatonic 3y agoIt was a great party trick while it lasted !
- nickez 3y agoThe reason gsm, 3g, 4g, sms and so on succeeded was because everyone could implement them. I guess you had to pay license or patent fees, but they are not walled gardens. Phones from different manufacturers and/or different operators can communicate. I'm surprised that "chat"-protocols are allowed to be monopolies by the regulators. The regulators probably don't understand tech.
- vitiral 3y agoIt is indeed confounding how something as simple as chat and messaging can be so difficult to standardize. I suppose looking at the shitshow that is email standards (and how difficult it is to ensure valid senders) gives some insight, but yikes.
- Spivak 3y agoBecause "chat" is pretty much meaningless as a term. The only common thread between chat apps is "bidirectional data transfer between at least two devices." SMS and Discord are both chat but have wildly different completely incompatible semantics, iMessage embeds full iOS apps and a payment network into the chat. I can't see any world where chat gets standardized that doesn't involve throwing out everything except the most basic sms-style semantics which is basically what RCS is.
- nickez 3y agoYou can have different standards for different use cases. So you mean that iMessage and rcs are so different that Android can't use iMessage or apple couldn't use rcs? We don't need to find one standard to rule them all. But we need to stop anti-competition behavior like allowing these protocols to be exclusive.
- Spivak 3y agoUsed as a common denominator for basic communication, yes. Use for the kinds of rich interactions and modalities (like the "server" metaphor) that Apple, Google, and everyone else wants to add to chat, no. And that's where we get lost in "extension hell."
- trinsic2 3y agoDidn't see that coming (Sarcasm)
- dkga 3y agoSeriously what I don’t get is the number of people complaining about iMessage for Android vs Apple when free, encrypted and widely used system-agnostic alternatives like WhatsApp exist.
- 4oo4 3y agoNetwork effects. In the US at least WhatsApp and Signal are barely used in comparison to iMessage, despite them being solid cross platform alternatives.
- nilespotter 3y agoBeeper would have interested me, maybe in 6 months if it had seemed like Apple was willing to live with it. I don't want to use iMessage though, I just want to use it more than SMS or RCS. I have gotten a few of my close contacts on Signal. The whole landscape is completely chaotic. All I really want is to be able to send and receive e2ee messages with everyone else who has an extremely capable computer in their pocket.
- thatkid234 3y agoTo my understanding, Beeper uses some random Mac's serial number to complete device attestation. Would this be salvageable if I could provide my own legitimately purchased iPhone or Mac serial number?
- ghqst 3y agoBeeper fixed their other iMessage bridge service last night by rotating device serial numbers on their server farm, so I would guess this would work? To my knowledge the pypush library itself isn't broken.
- system2 3y agoHuh, I was expecting 1 month after launch but it took 1 week. Silly PR stunt by Beeper.
- LanzVonL 3y agoI've always had trouble meeting women because of my text bubble color. This was perhaps my only chance to find love. Now I'm never getting a girlfriend.
- konaraddi 3y agoGenuine question, what's Beeper’s angle? They knew they could be cut off. I’m guessing they envisioned being the mouse in a cat and mouse game, or they’re laying some tracks for future lawsuit(s) to open up iMessage.
- wackget 3y agoTechcrunch is an absolute abomination of a website. For those using uBlock and/or uMatrix, have a look at the list of third-party domains the site uses. No less than 18(!) of them: * ads-twitter.com * bizzabo.com * dscg1.akamai.net * facebook.net * google-analytics.com * googlesyndication.com * googletagmanager.com * mrf.io * oath.com * sail-horizon.com * twitter.com * twitter.map.fastly.net * typekit.net * vidible.tv * wp.com * yahoo.com * yahoodns.net * yimg.com There's also two (!) layers of cookie consent redirects and the page simply will not load without JavaScript. Even with first-party scripts enabled the main article doesn't load and at this point I don't give enough of a shit to work out why. @dang should consider banning Techcrunch URLs from Hacker News IMHO.
- cjmcqueen 3y agoTechCrunch runs on WordPress, so at least wp.com is a legit domain to have on this list.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago"If it's Apple, then I think the biggest question is - if Apple truly cares about the privacy and security of their own iPhone users, why would they try to kill a service that enables iPhones to send encrypted chats to Android users?" "Why force iPhone users back to sending unencrypted SMS when they chat with friends on Android?," he asked." Thought experiment: What if Apple trains an "AI" on peoples' text messages. What laws could stop them.
- Vicinity9635 3y agoI was under the impression iMessage is e2e encrypted, meaning Apple doesn't have access to them.
- jetpackjoe 3y agoYes, but messages from iPhones *to* androids is not encrypted.
- paulmd 3y agoof course they can't be, because google's RCS encryption extensions are proprietary and they've refused interop. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/06/google-enables-end-to-end-encryption-for-androids-default-sms-rcs-app/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/06/google-enables-end-t... people forget that google has every interest in playing up the situation, and perversely this incentivizes them to refuse compromise or half-measures that might actually improve user experience. It's in google's interest for your apple<->google experience to be as poor as possible too, not just apple.
- danShumway 3y ago> of course they can't be They absolutely can be. Apple could officially do what Beeper Mini did unofficially. There's clearly a market of people on Android who would be willing to install an Apple messaging app in order to have secure messaging with their iOS contacts, and we know now that there's no technical barrier in front of an app like that existing. Even if not every Android user installed that app, even if it was only a portion -- it would still represent a large security increase for a non-trivial number of messages sent from Apple devices. It would not require Google's permission for Apple to launch a messaging app on Android, nor would it require Apple to use Google's proprietary encryption extensions (or to even use RCS at all). I agree that both Google and Apple have a vested interest in refusing interop, but it's not a stalemate -- both companies, individually, could take actions to improve security regardless of the other's position. It's not Apple's fault that Google has completely botched the entirety of RCS. It's not Apple's fault that Google is now disingenuously pushing a broken standard under the deceptive guise of interop. But it's also not Google's fault that Apple is forcing iOS users to use less secure communication methods for their Android contacts even in situations where Android users are demonstrating that they would be willing to install separate applications just to secure those communications. Both companies have -- completely of their own free will -- chosen to leave the situation in its current state, and both companies could take steps to actually address these problems on their own if they wanted to. And neither Google nor Apple can blame the other for their failures to protect their own users.
- catlifeonmars 3y agoIsn’t RCS coming to Apple? Wouldn’t that obsolete beeper anyway?