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My 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 sh

My 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 ago
Yah, this is a great runway to launch a chat app with real encryption.
- jeroenhd 3y ago
  They already sell a wide ecosystem based on Matrix. The whole point of this app was to connect without relying on Matrix bridges.
etrautmann 3y ago
I 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 ago
  Exposure 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 ago
    Are you referring to the developer of the GitHub project they bought or the Beeper Mini devs?
    - MBCook 3y ago
      Were they not the same person? You’re right that doesn’t make sense. The GitHub developer I guess. Still his project got noticed because of all of this so it still sort of fits.
  - iKlsR 3y ago
    I did something similar, built an entire app around an undocumented developer api, got a lot of users and then ended up in a good enough position to find out there was a "hidden" official api for sale and it opened a lot of doors as well even to the same site had gotten it from. For someone as young as that with nothing but time, I'm sure they knew the outcome and it blowing up was probably more than they could ask for.
    - MBCook 3y ago
      Anyone who has paid any attention to Apple knew this was gonna happen relatively fast. Doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be an awesome project to do. I don’t blame them one bit. It’s an awesome achievement.
  - lolinder 3y ago
    What do the Beeper investors get out of the kid having better job prospects? I don't think anyone is questioning that the whole situation has been great for the kid, the question is what the Beeper execs were thinking.
    - evandale 3y ago
      Who cares about the investors? Why is this an important question? Corporations and investors aren't the only people in the world with an ability to reap their rewards.
      - Grustaf 3y ago
        Beeper should care about their investors, since they are using their money. I think they raised something like 15m.
- KomoD 3y ago
  They have another product, Beeper Cloud, does the same thing + includes a bunch of other messaging services but (as the name implies) runs in the "Cloud"
  - okdood64 3y ago
    Wait, how do they run cloud with iMessage?
    - dnlzro 3y ago
      They send your Apple credentials to a machine (possibly virtual) that runs macOS, which sends and receives messages. Those messages get relayed through Beeper.
- aftbit 3y ago
  Why? Because they could!
- sgjohnson 3y ago
  > from this technical investment What technical investment? They bought an open-source project from a high-school student. Beeper Mini is an app they would have built anyway. They simply implemented the bare minimum of iMessage functionality there. Which is a couple of days worth of work, maximum. Maybe a week. And some for testing. I’m somewhat certain it cost them less than 5 figures. And if it did, what a great marketing campaign. I had no idea what Beeper even was before this whole fiasco.
  - manmal 3y ago
    More like a few weeks to months since there‘s also emoji support and endless scrolling etc, but yeah. I agree it’s doable by one developer and that’s quite affordable to do, considering the scale Beeper is at now.
  - lolinder 3y ago
    I still have no idea what Beeper is, because beeper.com only talks about Beeper Mini. I'm getting from some people here on HN that there's another product... somewhere... but if the purpose of the whole exercise were to draw attention to that product shouldn't they be doing that somehow? As is all I know about is the chat app whose primary sales pitch is the now-broken iMessage interop.
    - rezonant 3y ago
      Bottom of the page, click Beeper Cloud. They signalled that they want to move all of Beeper Cloud's features to Mini eventually and just call it Beeper. https://www.beeper.com/cloud https://www.beeper.com/cloud
willseth 3y ago
Agree. It shows off their technical chops and gets a lot of press attention and goodwill for their target market of Android users who mostly don’t like Apple.
LeafItAlone 3y ago
That seems like a possibility. But if I was a user (and I am admittedly not), I would be _less_ likely to continue with their services after something like this. This experience would not instill confidence in me that any of their services would be stable.

evbogue 3y ago

Yah, this is a great runway to launch a chat app with real encryption.

jeroenhd 3y ago
They already sell a wide ecosystem based on Matrix. The whole point of this app was to connect without relying on Matrix bridges.

etrautmann 3y ago

I 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 ago
Exposure 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 ago
  Are you referring to the developer of the GitHub project they bought or the Beeper Mini devs?
  - MBCook 3y ago
    Were they not the same person? You’re right that doesn’t make sense. The GitHub developer I guess. Still his project got noticed because of all of this so it still sort of fits.
- iKlsR 3y ago
  I did something similar, built an entire app around an undocumented developer api, got a lot of users and then ended up in a good enough position to find out there was a "hidden" official api for sale and it opened a lot of doors as well even to the same site had gotten it from. For someone as young as that with nothing but time, I'm sure they knew the outcome and it blowing up was probably more than they could ask for.
  - MBCook 3y ago
    Anyone who has paid any attention to Apple knew this was gonna happen relatively fast. Doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be an awesome project to do. I don’t blame them one bit. It’s an awesome achievement.
- lolinder 3y ago
  What do the Beeper investors get out of the kid having better job prospects? I don't think anyone is questioning that the whole situation has been great for the kid, the question is what the Beeper execs were thinking.
  - evandale 3y ago
    Who cares about the investors? Why is this an important question? Corporations and investors aren't the only people in the world with an ability to reap their rewards.
    - Grustaf 3y ago
      Beeper should care about their investors, since they are using their money. I think they raised something like 15m.
KomoD 3y ago
They have another product, Beeper Cloud, does the same thing + includes a bunch of other messaging services but (as the name implies) runs in the "Cloud"
- okdood64 3y ago
  Wait, how do they run cloud with iMessage?
  - dnlzro 3y ago
    They send your Apple credentials to a machine (possibly virtual) that runs macOS, which sends and receives messages. Those messages get relayed through Beeper.
aftbit 3y ago
Why? Because they could!
sgjohnson 3y ago
> from this technical investment What technical investment? They bought an open-source project from a high-school student. Beeper Mini is an app they would have built anyway. They simply implemented the bare minimum of iMessage functionality there. Which is a couple of days worth of work, maximum. Maybe a week. And some for testing. I’m somewhat certain it cost them less than 5 figures. And if it did, what a great marketing campaign. I had no idea what Beeper even was before this whole fiasco.
- manmal 3y ago
  More like a few weeks to months since there‘s also emoji support and endless scrolling etc, but yeah. I agree it’s doable by one developer and that’s quite affordable to do, considering the scale Beeper is at now.
- lolinder 3y ago
  I still have no idea what Beeper is, because beeper.com only talks about Beeper Mini. I'm getting from some people here on HN that there's another product... somewhere... but if the purpose of the whole exercise were to draw attention to that product shouldn't they be doing that somehow? As is all I know about is the chat app whose primary sales pitch is the now-broken iMessage interop.
  - rezonant 3y ago
    Bottom of the page, click Beeper Cloud. They signalled that they want to move all of Beeper Cloud's features to Mini eventually and just call it Beeper. https://www.beeper.com/cloud https://www.beeper.com/cloud

willseth 3y ago

Agree. It shows off their technical chops and gets a lot of press attention and goodwill for their target market of Android users who mostly don’t like Apple.

LeafItAlone 3y ago

That seems like a possibility. But if I was a user (and I am admittedly not), I would be _less_ likely to continue with their services after something like this. This experience would not instill confidence in me that any of their services would be stable.