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Beeper Mini is back

• jessekv 3y ago
  > Beeper Mini made communication between Android and iPhone users more secure. That is a fact. It seemed like it would make spam and scamming over iMessage worse. At least it requires an Apple Id now.
  • sudosysgen 3y ago
    It was possible to send automated iMessage messages from Macs forever, and it's not exactly impossible to jailbreak iPhones, either.
• sgerenser 3y ago
  What’s the over/under on how long before Apple blocks it again?
  • oldandboring 3y ago
    I would give it up to 48 hours. It's important for Apple to architect their fix carefully so that they don't break the world for legitimate users. For my part, I had fun using Beeper Mini last week while it lasted but I cancelled my subscription and I'm likely not going to use it again due to the risk of incoming messages getting dropped on the floor when Apple blocks it again.
• rpmisms 3y ago
  I have a feeling they're not going to stop being a thorn in Apple's side for quite a while...
  • res0nat0r 3y ago
    They're either going to keep getting their access cut, or sued into bankruptcy. You can't really piggyback off another companies service in violation of their TOS without things working out poorly for you IMO.
    • rpmisms 3y ago
      Yeah, not the point. The point is to prove that it's possible and relatively simple, and the only reason Apple operates this way is to lock people into the ecosystem.
      • Legion 3y ago
        Is that really an unknown that anyone required proof of?
        • deleted 3y ago
          [deleted]
      • ketzo 3y ago
        > and the only reason Apple operates this way is to lock people into the ecosystem. Honest question: is there anyone who doesn't already think that? Even at, like, a legislative level?
        • grok25 3y ago
          [dead]
        • Nextgrid 3y ago
          Apple is pushing the whole security/privacy narrative and yet people are guzzling it even here, so I'd argue yes.
          • smoldesu 3y ago
            It's probably my favorite part of HN, at this point. The reaction from people the other day when Google/Apple admit to cooperating with FIVE-EYES was priceless.
            • Nextgrid 3y ago
              Expect another one of those once it gets revealed that marketing/analytics providers (whose spyware litters every single mainstream website & app) are also compromised by intelligence agencies.
  • smt88 3y ago
    They only thorn they're creating for Apple is forcing them to do anticompetitive things while they're being investigated for anticompetitive practices in places like the EU. In terms of technical problems, Apple will likely be able to keep up their end of the arms race with less than 1/2 of a single developer's time. The cost to continue patching Beeper out of their systems will be a fraction of a rounding error for them financially.
    • hamandcheese 3y ago
      I doubt that this can be done that easily without recklessly endangering the experience of their 1+ billion users. Beeper on the other hand has far fewer users, who by now likely expect a bad experience. Beeper can be way more agile.
      • smt88 3y ago
        Apple doesn't need to break backward compatibility to block Beeper, they just need a way to fingerprint traffic from Beeper which is going to be trivial unless Beeper finds a 100% on-device solution. Even then, it'll still be pretty easy because Apple has trillions of interactions with Apple devices to analyze and compare against Beeper.
  • bdcravens 3y ago
    How are they funding development?
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
• not_your_vase 3y ago
  So what's the big idea? Keep playing whack-a-mole with Apple until Apple changes their TOS and sues their pants off, or until they run out of open holes? Or is there a bigger end goal?
  • rpmisms 3y ago
    Force Apple to either allow or implement iMessage interoperability via competitive tactics, not regulatory means.
    • not_your_vase 3y ago
      They don't implement it exactly due to their competitive tactics... (It was exposed in a recent courtroom hearing that Apple has seriously considered making it available on Android, but they decided that having it Apple-only is a serious benefit for them)
      • doublerabbit 3y ago
        Of course. This now puts Apple in a prickly situation. One which paints a negative light on Apple which of, if a crowd following gathered "why isn't there iMessage for Android?". As I see, it would result of one of the following: - They sue and cause a backlash of Apple users. - They do nothing, shows Apple solely interest is in itself. - They create, happy times.
        • misnome 3y ago
          > "why isn't there iMessage for Android?" Is there a single person in the world who didn’t already know the answer to this question?
        • ethanbond 3y ago
          I don't think this is painting Apple in a negative light for their actual customers, who pay them money. It's painting them in a negative light for a small segment of Android users who obviously are unlikely to switch to Apple anyway.
• bsenftner 3y ago
  This is subtle and much bigger issue than it looks. Marketing people have a real issue with the inability for a single messaging solution, and paying the Apple tax. And unless you did not realize, marketing kind of run/control a lot, far more than it appears.
  • ciabattabread 3y ago
    Who gives marketing their phone number? Email or bust.
    • bsenftner 3y ago
      Why do you think two factor authentication with phones got so popular? To get your phone number!
• CharlesW 3y ago
  As an Apple customer, I applaud their tenacity. Every time Beeper's protocol hacks are fixed, Messages gets more secure.
  • radlad 3y ago
    By what metric? Arguably, users are less secure since "fixing" Messages (i.e. breaking Beeper) means Apple and Android users lose a secure communication channel. Beeper isn't "hacking" Messages... they've implemented the protocol.
    • chewmieser 3y ago
      I don't think the parent is that concerned with Android <-> Apple communications with that statement. Reverse-engineering a closed protocol and distributing an Apple Binary (IIRC correctly) are a bit more than just "implementing a protocol."
      • radlad 3y ago
        > Reverse-engineering a closed protocol and distributing an Apple Binary (IIRC correctly) are a bit more than just "implementing a protocol." Reverse-engineering the protocol was the first step to implementing it. The point is that there was no vulnerability exploited in the protocol - it's as secure as it ever was. I don't think they are shipping an Apple binary. Can you provide a source for that?
    • CharlesW 3y ago
      > Arguably, users are less secure since "fixing" Messages (i.e. breaking Beeper) means Apple and Android users lose a secure communication channel. If you hack a secure communications channel so that unauthorized client software/hardware can pretend to be authorized software/hardware, how does that make the channel more secure?
      • mab122 3y ago
        > If you hack a secure communications channel so that unauthorized client software/hardware can pretend to be authorized software/hardware, how does that make the channel more secure? How does it make more insecure? It doesnt, security should be accomplished by the protocol, messages themselves not by blockong access to a communication channel. Otherwise its just https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity
• odiroot 3y ago
  Happy user of normal Beeper, have no skin in this particular game though. Still, I'm glad they brought it back, and hope will continue this route. Anything that helps break the high walls of that garden.
• nickvec 3y ago
  Over or under on 24 hours until they are "not back" again?
• solardev 3y ago
  > We’ve made Beeper free to use. > Our Play Store ranking dropped precipitously on Friday. Really have to wonder what their play here is. What did they think would happen? Isn't it always going to be a cat and mouse game with Apple? Who would want to use a messaging service that works some days but not others, much less pay for it?
  • radlad 3y ago
    It seems clear to me that Beeper is playing a game of chicken with Apple. If Apple continues to cut off Beeper's access, it makes an antitrust argument stronger (a la https://9to5mac.com/2023/12/06/eus-imessage-antitrust-investigation-looks-set-to-rule-in-apples-favor/ https://9to5mac.com/2023/12/06/eus-imessage-antitrust-invest...)
    • solardev 3y ago
      In the event Apple loses in Europe, I wonder what would happen. Would they really open up iMessage worldwide? Just in Europe? Shut it down there altogether since WhatsApp is already so popular there anyway, and their US market is bigger? And what does this do for Beeper, anyway? If they open it up, wouldn't Google and Samsung just integrate it into their first party messaging clients? It seems as precarious a position as Trillian was back in the day: only usable if the source protocols don't shut them out, but only valuable if those protocols don't open up completely. The moment either happens, they die.
      • Longhanks 3y ago
        Whatever legislation they face, they will implement it in the most hostile way towards non-Apple services/users/companies. See how they implement off-App Store payments in the Netherlands and/or South Korea. Apple is not giving up on iMessage. And, given the legislation becomes to cumbersome to deal with, they will withdraw from countries - they threatened to withdraw iMessage from the UK already. The EU is already becoming a second-class market for technology companies (see Meta's Threads, and many more will follow).
• dbg31415 3y ago
  Doesn’t this push traffic that didn’t pay Apple through Apple’s infrastructure? These guys should know better than to waste dev hours on a business problem. Apple isn’t going to allow this. No amount of shady spoofing or reverse engineering will change that. If you want to send an iMessage just get an iPhone. Pretty basic requirements.
• martinky24 3y ago
  These Beeper folk sound a bit entitled. As was repeatedly mentioned in the other thread [1], building production applications on top of an undocumented and unsupported (in terms of backwards compatability, etc) API is a nightmare that should be avoided. Apple has every right to change their API, if they do Beeper will go down, and Beeper will blame Apple. I understand Apple's incentives to not want to be in this situation. I don't buy their "Beeper unequivocally makes things secure story" either. For one, I do not want to have my Apple ID login routed through a third party. I trust an established, trillion dollar company far more with that sensitive info than I do a fast-moving, eager-to-break-things startup. And the list goes on. It's an impressive engineering effort, but I really don't believe they're entitled to parasite off the undocumented iMessage API. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38574888 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38574888
  • campbel 3y ago
    I think they are rightly calling out that iMessage as part of Apple's moat building is both bad for their customers and people their customers interact with. And while I agree with you, and I won't be using the service, I think from their POV it is the correct messaging.
    • richwater 3y ago
      > Apple's moat building is both bad for their customers and people their customers interact with I bought into the ecosystem exactly because of the quality and functionality of iMessage. There's absolutely no spam, everything works and the ecosystem is tight-knit.
      • doublerabbit 3y ago
        But other side of the Apple reality is your then stuck when all your other relatives use Android. I am then forced to use some $app, persuade my contacts to use said app. Defeating the point of iMessage when I just want native support all around. Something that Apple had never implemented anywhere else and for which it could decades ago. I wouldn't switch to an Android because the feature became available. If all your contacts use Apple Devices, sure go nuts. But when others don't iMessage becomes unpractical. But hey, vendor device lock-in money is very nice. It's unfortunate that they don't water the lawns of the walled-garden nor restock the bird feeder. We are expected to do that ourselves using a wooden ladder with missing prongs.
• oefrha 3y ago
  > Android and iPhone customers desperately want to be able to chat together with high quality images/video, encryption, emojis, typing status, read receipts, and all modern chat features. There are numerous chat apps with those features, so I can’t see why people were “desperate” about it at all. Better yet, those existing chat apps aren’t likely to stop working tomorrow.
  • SpaceManNabs 3y ago
    > iPhone customers desperately want to be able to chat together is also laughably false lol. iPhone users just want android users to get an iphone.
    • theshrike79 3y ago
      ...in the US. The rest of the world uses Telegram, WhatsApp and Signal. This blue/green bubble SMS but not SMS -thing is a 100% an American issue.
      • Jtsummers 3y ago
        It's really not an American issue. It's an immature people issue. I've yet to meet anyone who actually cares about whether their messages show up as blue or green when they send them. My social network (in the US) is about 50/50 for Android and iPhone users, and we have a variety of group threads that have both types of phones in them. The only people that care are: - Maybe some children - Some immature adults - A lot of people who have never used an iPhone and don't even know what the blue/green bubble is but whine about it anyways.
        • greatquux 3y ago
          100%. It's nice to have the typing status, delivered/read status, higher quality of pictures, etc. But I could care less what color it is, and group conversations with SMS/MMS work pretty darn well. I would like a desktop SMS/MMS/iMessage client for my Linux desktop though without having to run a Mac.
• andrewmcwatters 3y ago
  I like that this is happening, because Apple will want to prevent it from being possible, and they'll dig their own regulatory grave doing it.
• jimsimmons 3y ago
  Crazy that Apple gets to ship a proprietary messaging app as the default
  • hu3 3y ago
    Apple is lucky that iMessage usage in EU is irrelevant. Otherwise this kind of thing would have been regulated already. See what's happening to Safari on iOS. Took a long time if you ask me.
  • everfree 3y ago
    Google does it too, with their proprietary messaging app that extends the RCS protocol.
  • robertoandred 3y ago
    What's proprietary about SMS?
• LordKeren 3y ago
  I think one of the underlying issues is that many are now going to be hesitant to even bother with Beeper Mini anymore. I don’t think there is going to be a high tolerance for this game of cat and mouse from the end user perspective I also don’t think goading apple is going to do much here either. Regardless of the current feelings around apple’s walled garden, they are not going to suddenly keel over and give up on locking out these commercialized attempted to bypass their security
  • philomath_mn 3y ago
    Yeah I was super excited to try it out last week, but then it went down and I didn't receive important messages from my wife (didn't even realize the app was down). I probably won't try it again until it has a few months of uninterrupted service.
  • SparkyMcUnicorn 3y ago
    Right now Beeper Mini only works without registering your phone number, and I'd be ok if that's all I ever got. In fact, I hope they make number registration optional if they do get that working again. I still have my Macbook if/when Beeper is cut off again.
    • wvenable 3y ago
      It definitely might be better at the moment without registering your number as then you won't have messages disappear into nothingness if the service goes down again. I missed a few messages when I switched from iPhone to Android because I hadn't deregistered my number from Apple. I don't think I'd use my existing Apple ID for this -- probably easy enough to create a new one with a new email.
    • lxgr 3y ago
      Number registration is and always was optional on Beeper Mini!
  • graphe 3y ago
    iMessage is reliable, ‘free’ and encrypted. Beeper mini is unreliable, paid, and encrypted. I wouldn’t recommend it anymore to my Android friends.
• kickofline 3y ago
  > If Apple insists, we would consider adding a pager emoji to metadata on all messages sent via Beeper Mini. This would make it easy for Messages App to filter out any messages from Beeper Mini users. Why would they not just shut it down if Apple asks, wouldn't that just do the same thing (beeper users can't send messages)
  • kbf 3y ago
    I'm guessing they think Apple might consider an opt-out (or more likely opt-in) setting to allow messages from other platforms.
• qrohlf 3y ago
  I’m curious what their best-case outcome is here. It’s fully transparent at this point that Apple has no appetite for a third party iMessage client on any platform and will take whatever technical steps needed to prevent this from happening. I’d wager heavily that even if Beeper plays cat-and-mouse to the point where they’ve exhausted Apple’s budget for blocking them and somehow managed to avoid Apple’s legal team putting a stop to things via other channels (very unlikely), Apple’s next move would likely be to release some kind of official iMessage Android client rather than cede control of the space to Beeper. It’s easy to read this as a pure publicity stunt on Beeper’s behalf, but that’s not what I’m getting from the tone and content of these announcements. And I also don’t think the market for a paid all-in-one chat app is large enough to justify the expenditure that this iMessage for Android project represents, if the endgame is ultimately a PR stunt. They seem too smart to realistically think that Apple is going to just shrug and let them continue unbothered after a few rounds of back-and-forth, so what are they playing at?
  • starkparker 3y ago
    Best-case outcome is that Apple decides engaging in an arms race with a motivated competitor isn't worth the time or effort and they enable some (probably limited) interop. I can imagine a "blue-green" type of message that's encrypted but not from an Apple device; Apple keeps their status symbology and users on both ends get E2E encrypted messages to and from Apple device users without Apple users switching to a third-party app. Apple's never had to confront this because nobody's had this much success smashing the walled garden on iMessage before. If Beeper is persistent and good enough, they'll have the first foot in the door of such an outcome. Worst case is Apple keeps escalating the fight knowing that Beeper can't outlast them. Everybody loses in this situation; Beeper and Apple both burn a bunch of money with no benefit to anyone, iMessage users see people popping into and out of chats because Apple keeps blocking them, and most non-Apple users continue sending unencrypted SMS messages because Apple users won't switch off iMessage. Of all the moats Apple has, iMessage's "blue bubble" is by far the most arbitrary. Allowing strictly controlled interop with non-Apple devices doesn't change how good iMessage is, it only dents the ecosystem's most superficial status symbol. I'm rooting for the better outcome but expecting the latter.
• foxhill 3y ago
  the optics are already less than ideal for apple. beeper mini dismisses the any technical challenge apple may claim a hurdle to android having iMessage. i don’t doubt this will also get shutdown in the near term, but i’m 70% confident in a surprising acquisition & continued support from apple in the longer term. it will be hard for apple to continue to claim they are pro-user when they appear to be this hostile toward android users.
  • jkubicek 3y ago
    I'm 0% confident in a surprise acquisition by Apple. Beeper doesn't seem to offer anything that Apple couldn't do themselves.
    • hamandcheese 3y ago
      With that logic you would expect Apple to never make acquisitions. They've got the money in the bank to do just about anything.
      • averageRoyalty 3y ago
        Can you show an example of an aquisition they've made to explicitly stop an external company using their APIs? I've not heard of one, it doesn't appear to be in their playbook.
        • hamandcheese 3y ago
          You're moving the goalposts. Parent said "Beeper doesn't seem to offer anything that Apple couldn't do themselves."
          • MBCook 3y ago
            It’s the same thing. There is no reason for Apple to buy Beeper except to make them stop. Apple doesn’t do that. It has lawyers to use.
• hcurtiss 3y ago
  Honestly, I just want the ability to add and remove Android users from group chats without having to start an entirely new thread. If RCS fixes this, then I'll be thrilled.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• garysahota93 3y ago
  Feedback for the Beeper team if they are reading: there is a non-zero amount of us that own Apple devices (like MacBooks or iPads) and not iPhones. For those it applies to, what if you leveraged the legitimate devices we do own as the spoofed devices used by Beeper Mini to register? Don't know if that would solve the Phone Number registration part, but thought I'd throw this out there
  • ibeckermayer 3y ago
    That’s how standard Beeper does it, or at least used to do it: https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/21/pebble-founder-launches-beeper-a-universal-chat-app-that-works-with-imessage-and-others/ https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/21/pebble-founder-launches-be...
    • garysahota93 3y ago
      Beeper cloud used the device as a relay mechanism. I'm suggesting the same on-Android-device implementation, but rather than randomly generating an apple device to send to Apple's registration servers, they use a device I legitimately own. No relays (so preserves security) & harder for apple to identify (because to them it'd be as if I'm just using my iPad)
      • hamandcheese 3y ago
        I believe it is possible to use your own relay with Beeper (original Beeper, not Beeper mini).
        • deleted 3y ago
          [deleted]
  • modeless 3y ago
    I believe that this already works. If you register your phone number to your Apple ID on an iPhone, then Beeper Mini (and/or Cloud) should be able to receive and send messages using your phone number in iMessage just as, say, your Mac can.
• mholm 3y ago
  > If Apple insists, we would consider adding a pager emoji to metadata on all messages sent via Beeper Mini. This would make it easy for Messages App to filter out any messages from Beeper Mini users. Presumably this would only be if Apple agreed to allow the beeper mini users by default? I appreciate Beeper's stance on all of this, and hope they can continue operating.
  • shazzdeeds 3y ago
    It’s also either naive or a troll. If that did become the handshake it would be reverse engineered and spoofed by bad actors just the same.
    • 1231232131231 3y ago
      The point isn't to prove that it's beeper sending the message, the point is that Apple could give users an option to ignore Beeper's messages. Either way, I doubt Apple would come to an agreement and would most likely continue to play the cat and mouse game (like they do with people who jb)
• solarpunk 3y ago
  props to these guys for intentionally getting into a cat and mouse game with apple over this. surely there's security implications to all this, if you've got a chat app where there's some internal belief that it can only run on certain platforms, also controlled by your company, there may be some assumptions made about how things work... can't help but imagine beeper itself opens up more vectors for stuff like the recently-in-the-news push notification mass surveillance i have been wondering if theres other outcomes i'm missing between the two obvious results: 1) a more tightly controlled, locked-down iMessage ecosystem 2) some kind of explicitly supported third-party api
  • turtlesdown11 3y ago
    3) loss of access to tools that worked for the hackintosh community. But who cares about the true hackers here?
  • zer0kool 3y ago
    I'm always a proponent of rooting for the underdog. But, in this scenario I am finding it hard to justify doing so. Beeper isn't doing this for some mystical enthusiasm for hacking and exploiting or sticking it to the man. It's motives are purely incentivized by profit which makes it hard to for me to root for. If this were a small time hobbyist providing a solution for an existing problem, sure I'm all game for that.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• felixguilherme 3y ago
  how long will it last this time?
• Kuinox 3y ago
  Tried to use the app. 2FA error, and can't connect to iMessage, so I can't use the app :|.
  • Kuinox 3y ago
    An update fixed everything.
• gormandizer 3y ago
  Beeper on main(ish)stream media. https://www.cnbc.com/video/2023/12/11/apple-shutters-new-app-bleeper-in-latest-block-to-imessage-for-android.html https://www.cnbc.com/video/2023/12/11/apple-shutters-new-app...
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• madeofpalk 3y ago
  > Messages App is the default chat app for all iPhone customers. Not only is it the default, iOS makes it impossible to change the default chat app. In the US, where the majority of people have iPhones, this means that the easiest way to chat is by tapping on your friend’s name in your contact list and hitting the ‘message’ button. This is not true. On iOS - iOS has APIs for third party messaging and voip apps to intergrates natively into the system where they are presented as equal peers to iMessage and default phone app. When I view contacts in the first party Contacts app, it presents message & call as the top options for my contacts. The first time per-contact it'll prompt you which you want to use, with third party options getting equal billing compared to first-party, but after that it'll remember.
  • Nextgrid 3y ago
    Default option is still usual phone call/iMessage in a lot of places - in some you can long press and select another option, but not all. Also, merely opening a separate app doesn't really help. How about instead of having 5 different apps (that the system one sometimes generously allows you to open), you had one app that can seamlessly speak all protocols? You can add multiple e-mail or contacts accounts (even from different providers) and it'll seamlessly merge them in the system Mail/Contacts apps - why can't we have the same for messages?
    • tinus_hn 3y ago
      You wonder how anyone survives in all of the world where nobody uses iMessage (which is everywhere except the US). How do people even manage to open WhatsApp? How do people survive this horror!
      • rplnt 3y ago
        I have an iPhone (and macbook if that matters) and have no idea what all the rage is about. Is iMessage the default sms client? It's just called Messages on my phone. What does it offer? Mine looks like the stock android one. I see virtually zero options to do anything else than to send a message. Is it US only thing?
• MitchellKnight 3y ago
  Isn't this a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act or other US laws? Doesn't the fact they are trying to make money off of this negate any ethical hacker arguments?
  • Nextgrid 3y ago
    Beeper doesn't "hack" anything though, it uses the exact same authorization mechanism as a real iOS device and grants the user access to no more than a real device would. I agree that the CFAA can be abused to try and prosecute this (as well as the DMCA), and I suspect Beeper is intentionally hoping for (heavily publicized) litigation to settle this once and for all and set a precedent.
    • quantumsequoia 3y ago
      > it uses the exact same authorization mechanism as a real iOS device and grants the user access to no more than a real device would. And a hacker that social engineers someone's bank password is entering just like the account owner would. "Hacking" doesn't have to involve exploiting a technical vulnerability. It's just unauthorized system access, regardless of methodology
• nkcmr 3y ago
  Yeah, I am not expecting this to be a protracted game of cat and mouse. Apple will just sue them in the end; that'll put a REAL quick stop to this. I wish things had more interoperability, but Apple is under no obligation to implement it or be okay with it. And honestly, I believe them when they say that this is a security/privacy risk; even if it does serve their anticompetitive tendencies.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • haswell 3y ago
    Tech journalists have noted that this kind of reverse engineering for the purpose of interoperability is specifically covered (allowed) by applicable laws. I’m not well versed in the related laws, but it at least seems on the surface that lawsuits may not be the end here. If it’s a security issue, that’s on Apple’s architecture. They can cat and mouse this, but the more times they catch the mouse, the worse this looks for Apple because it effectively means that iMessage was never secure to begin with. Only time will tell how effectively they can address this.
  • quantumsequoia 3y ago
    Sue them on what grounds?
  • wanderingmind 3y ago
    And what if Beeper open sources their client? How is Apple going to stop that?
• knowald 3y ago
  It might be a controversial topic, but this post had some oddly rapid upvotes for HN. I'm trying to understand what the target of this hacky iMessage spin-off of Beeper is. The whole idea of subscription-based monetization. Rather no way of Apple not patching quickly, dealing with this as soon as it raises attention. But maybe that was the intent of a hack they found? A clever marketing strategy, to gain some rapid traction with the controversy, highlighting their project?
  • xd1936 3y ago
    For me, it's less about craving a specific service, and more about watching tech drama and idealism at war.
  • rpmisms 3y ago
    I saw the announcement on Twitter and came over here to talk about it. People are really excited about Beeper.
    • meowtimemania 3y ago
      I’m not excited about beeper but am excited about the drama around beeper!
  • standardUser 3y ago
    Gatekeeping iMessage has become one of the most despised facets of Apple's many gatekeeping techniques, primarily because of widespread bullying.
    • mrlatinos 3y ago
      Bingo. I was excluded from a group chat of ~15 people because I was the only one without iMessage. Eventually they included me. I showed one of them the chat in Google Messages and he was amazed at how nice it looked, since Android supports Apple reactions. They're also jealous of all the emojis I can react with (and I admit I do it just to rub it in their face).
  • deleted 3y ago
• macinjosh 3y ago
  "Moat" is SV buzzword that means monopoly as a goal. These people want to own the thing and not let anyone benefit from it other than themselves. The fact that Beeper Mini is possible in the first place categorically proves Apple is making a decision here to restrict interoperability. If we have regulators for anything it should be for things like this. At Apple's scale it is completely unacceptable behaviour. The whole iMessage things lost me as a 23 year customer of Apple. I just don't care about them anymore because they clearly don't care about their customers. Plus they've release the same goddamn phone for the last decade. Tim Cook has been coasting on Job's legacy and times almost up for them being on top.
• spullara 3y ago
  I'm glad that at least you need an Apple ID for this to work. Apple probably closed the spam hole.
• resters 3y ago
  Apple/Google/Microsoft/Amazon do a lot of extremely petty things that should disgust us and give us a glimpse at how this pettiness and adversarial conduct might escalate in a GAI world: - Amazon does not carry Google branded products. ([edit] they do now once again, whew!) - Search in GMail is nearly completely broken when you have too many messages, yet Google (ostensibly a search company) can't deliver good email search at scale so they don't bother. - Apple allows lots of customization of push notifications and notification behavior (lock screen, badge icons, etc., etc.) yet does not simply let the user turn off push notifications that are advertisements or promotions. - Google does not let parents choose third party whitelist "experts" for kids content recommendations. The status quo is that most kids either have parents who spend hours curating or they get to watch all the generative content garbage that Youtube hosts. - Google Maps contains significant glitches and confusing navigation suggestions even though there must be terabytes of data showing that they routinely result in wrong turns and rerouting. These are all examples of market failures that are fostered/continued by various anticompetitive aspects of the markets these firms operate in. Not sure why anyone would expect Apple to allow Beeper Mini when clearly iMessage is meant to secure a competitive advantage at the expense of apple customers convenience and freedom.
  • odiroot 3y ago
    > - Amazon does not carry Google branded products What do you mean? I just searched on Amazon UK and can easily buy Pixels, Home Nest etc.
    • resters 3y ago
      Ahh they seem to have become available again. That's a step in the right direction.
  • endisneigh 3y ago
    How can this be taken seriously when basic facts are wrong. Go on Amazon and check for Google products. Apple has no way of telling you what an advertisement or promotion is, and it’s inherently subjective.
• sergiotapia 3y ago
  Sprinkle some seasoning on these guys, cus they're cooked. There is no path forward for integrating with Apple unless Apple opens up imessage. Fat chance. These guys took years and years and years to switch to a non-idiotic charging port! :( I wonder how viable their business is without imessage integration. They are still aiming for all-in-one chat app - but that's not new and has been done at least a dozen times before. How is this VC scalable?
• kernal 3y ago
  Why are Apple users so upset about this? It's almost as if they don't want interoperability with Android users. And please spare me the spam excuse.
  • theklr 3y ago
    Why do android users want something they have everything else ahead? I don’t want interoperability. If I did I’d use the other messaging apps that are far beyond apple’s. The only value I see is stubbornness with older family as many see iPhones as a simpler device
  • globular-toast 3y ago
    I'm going to go with a combination of Stockholm syndrome, crabs in a bucket and snobbery. Apple users like to think they're in a special little club.
    • wrboyce 3y ago
      Speaking as one Apple user, I don’t think of myself in a special club - I just like that my shit works. What I don’t understand is why Android users are so vested in ruining it for me. Can’t have nice things.
      • globular-toast 3y ago
        Why would it ruin it for you?
      • oldandboring 3y ago
        The guy you replied to made an honest mistake, he forgot to include 'smugness'.
  • foobiekr 3y ago
    Spam. And you knew that.
• dabinat 3y ago
  I don’t really understand the long-term purpose of Beeper. Apple has already announced RCS, which will fix most complaints about text messaging interoperability. There is still the question of encryption, which Beeper is strongly pushing, however Apple has announced it wants to develop an RCS encryption standard, so it sounds like it will be solved at some point in the next few years. At that point, all Beeper becomes is a service to turn a green bubble blue.
  • rpmisms 3y ago
    Group messages. RCS doesn't have a good solution for this.
  • foooorsyth 3y ago
    >At that point, all Beeper becomes is a service to turn a green bubble blue. This is a bigger deal than encryption itself to most people using Beeper. Beeper requires you to divulge your Apple ID password to Beeper anyways, so arguing for security is quite strange. People literally just want blue bubbles on their Android — that’s the main appeal.
• neilv 3y ago
  I get why many people might want this, but open standards are the way to go, and this seems to be playing into the hands of proprietary in some ways.
  • quantumsequoia 3y ago
    Beeper's ultimate goal is to promote the Matrix protocol, and bridge proprietary networks to the open protocol
• jonplackett 3y ago
  I’m really curious how this is possible. Why wouldn’t every iMessage sent be tied to an Apple ID? If Beeper can do this, wouldn’t that mean anyone else with the same technique could basically spam iMessage users across the world?
  • Nextgrid 3y ago
    A friend of mine got her Apple ID compromised years ago and cloud sync brought back the spam that the attacker was sending. iMessage spam is not new - whether it will increase remains to be seen.
    • jonplackett 3y ago
      It just seems like an insane way to set things up. I must be missing something because Apple is not usually a crazy company.
• mareko 3y ago
  It's interesting to see how polarizing this topic is. I'm curious if people are just reacting according to the "party line" so to speak, ie based on whether they are iPhone or Android users. We can do a poll to confirm this without revealing your phone preference. Just respond with "Affirmative" if you are an iPhone user and dont like this OR you're an Android users and like this. Likewise, respond with "Negative" if you're in the opposite camp.
  • misnome 3y ago
    I think you are mixing up what you are calling “the party line” with a mixture of - people cheering for the world they want (EU yet again forces a US company to change behaviour), and people who view the chances of this (at best interpretation legally grey) gamble working without that as extremely unlikely.
  • mrweasel 3y ago
    It's not really that simple. I'm an iPhone use, who thinks Android is kinda pointless, but I don't understand why Apple hasn't opened up the iMessage protocols years ago, or at the very least made their own Android application
• mlindner 3y ago
  I'm surprised people are defending these guys. This is paid-for illegal breaking into systems.
• m3kw9 3y ago
  I’m hoping Apple find a perm shut down solution. A proper iMessage client for android can’t come from a hack. I do applaud them for getting a home run in PR for themselves
• sentientslug 3y ago
  Without phone number registration working isn't this far less useful?
  • flycatcha 3y ago
    Surprised this doesn't have more upvotes, without phone number registration Beeper Mini isn't actually back.
• faeyanpiraat 3y ago
  I got my first iMessage spam from an email address ever. I wonder if this whole thing is related..
• ur-whale 3y ago
  Try as you may, you will not escape the village https://youtu.be/op7IgFbT8l0?t=194 https://youtu.be/op7IgFbT8l0?t=194
• lopkeny12ko 3y ago
  Beeper has caught a ton of media attention in recent weeks but I truly do not understand it. The SMS protocol has been around for decades and works perfectly fine with iPhones. If you want rich media and other bells and whistles, use WhatsApp. How often does someone whine so loudly about insisting on using the closed, Apple-proprietary protocol that their friends need to pay a monthly subscription for a third party interop app?
  • duped 3y ago
    > If you want rich media and other bells and whistles, use WhatsApp. People in America don't use WhatsApp. There's no reason for me to switch when none of my friends/family/contacts have it. > How often does someone whine so loudly about insisting on using the closed, Apple-proprietary protocol that their friends need to pay a monthly subscription for a third party interop app? Enough that people don't date people who use Android
  • jay-barronville 3y ago
    SMS is fundamentally insecure. I don’t want to use WhatsApp.
  • yoavm 3y ago
    It's a USA thing. No ones uses WhatsApp. Everyone has an iPhone. If you're using Android everyone knows it and they'll shame you for it.
  • UmYeahNo 3y ago
    I tell you what, if you're a young person you can be publicly shamed for having the wrong color bubble, or outcast by being excluded from a group chat. To you and I that probably doesn't make sense, but for a big portion of the young, phone using population being unable to participate in the iMessage ecosystem is a huge deal socially. You are essentially excluded from the friend group, you're excluded from conversations, and it carries over into real life because you've been excluded and that carries an impact -- you're an outcast. It doesn't have to be rational to be true. Being excluded from a group chat has a huge social impact for younger people.
• maratc 3y ago
  Living in the country where absolutely no one uses iMessage, the whole kerfuffle about the colour of the message bubble leaves me completely flabbergasted. I mean, probably the curvature of the Earth is involved, but from here this looks like a very small hill to die on.
  • fullstop 3y ago
    It's not the color of the message, for me. If an Apple user sends me a video it comes through as an extremely low resolution and highly compressed video. Look at the unwanted grackles at my mom's bird feeder: https://i.imgur.com/7gBt22i.png https://i.imgur.com/7gBt22i.png Fantastic, right?
    • badwolf 3y ago
      Because it's sent as MMS. Apple implementing RCS next year will mitigate that.
      • sneak 3y ago
        RCS lacks end to end encryption.
  • RKearney 3y ago
    iMessage is not about the color of the bubble. While the color is what's most noticeable to the end user, a non-iMessage chat means: 1. Unable to rename group chats 2. Photo sharing quality is lowered 3. Video sharing quality is abysmal 4. Messages traverse carrier networks in plain-text 5. Loss of undo send and delete 6. Loss of inline replies 7. Loss of typing indicators and read-receipts (if enabled) Just to name a few.
    • maratc 3y ago
      I won't doubt the fact that you know that other cross-platform messaging apps exist.
• jay-barronville 3y ago
  I’m a former Android fanatic turned iPhone user. I still own Android devices, but my primary device is an iPhone. I haven’t had something excite me as much as this Beeper Mini situation in years—I love that they’re doing this. One of the things that got me to switch to the iPhone a few years ago was the fact that it seemed Apple was actually doing a lot of the right things when it came to privacy and security. Obviously, I was still pretty skeptical of them, but compared to Google, Apple’s track record seemed a bit more trustworthy. The way Apple tries to lock you in though while stifling competition is extremely disappointing. They’re on the wrong side of history.
  • kulahan 3y ago
    >They're on the wrong side of history. Say that to their market cap. Seems a lot of people appreciate what comes with that drawback. Revealed preferences can be a sonuvabitch.
    • freedomben 3y ago
      yep. And GP themself is an example of why this works. Their practices sold an iphone and converted a fanatic Android user!
    • smoldesu 3y ago
      I will say that to their market cap. Such an insane capitalization on digital sales can only be achieved by extinguishing the alternatives your platform can host. It's a regressive featureset that can (apparently) only be reversed through legislative demands a-la Digital Market Act. Many, many companies have had huge market caps while funding anti-humanist or exploitative processes. Given Apple's scale you almost have to assume that they're abusing something lucrative.
      • ceejayoz 3y ago
        > Such an insane capitalization on digital sales... Apple's market cap is built on something like 80% hardware sales by revenue.
    • 3y ago
• b0bb1z3r0 3y ago
  [dead]
• DeIlliad 3y ago
  This is some ways like Youtube and adblock. Apple is completely within their right to try to kick Beeper to the curb but I also enjoy watching a scrappy company like Beeper try to circumvent Apple's attempts to shut them out. Because of how likely it is to be killed though I don't think I shall be adopting it personally.
• supermatt 3y ago
  Apples response: > These techniques posed significant risks to user security and privacy, including the potential for metadata exposure and enabling unwanted messages, spam, and phishing attacks. Didn’t it recently come to light that apple have been “exposing” that metadata to government agencies for years? Maybe they should stop exposing metadata rather than blaming others for replicating their implementation! How does a 3rd party implementing their API mean there will be “unwanted messages, spam and phishing attacks”? Are they accusing the 3rd party of doing that, or do they believe 3rd party software is inherently inferior to their own (which constantly needs security updates).
  • averageRoyalty 3y ago
    Because by abusing an older style auth method, they skip a lot of the checks required to start iMessaging people currently. This methodology can be abused by SMS scammers, phishers, etc to easily target the iMessage network that users may often feel has a higher default level of trust.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  • WendyTheWillow 3y ago
    You can't imagine how exposing a new, automatable interface might increase spam?
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
• bdcravens 3y ago
  There is no doubt that Google will refund every single customer that asks (they are way more flexible about refunds than Apple - I've known people who were able to get substantial amount of IAPs from games refunded just because they didn't like the results they got). I suspect those refunds will be net negative for Beeper.
• nikanj 3y ago
  I wonder how far I would have to dig before I found the way Google is funding Beeper Mini. They are a sacrificial lamb, getting lead to slaughter so Google can ask EU regulators to stop Apple’s anti-competitive actions.
  • quantumsequoia 3y ago
    Considering beeper is coming after Google's closed chat networks too, I doubt it.
• bentt 3y ago
  The whole green bubble thing with Android SMS on iPhone is a problem, but the solution is to get everyone to use a different chat app. Apple will never give this up. Google could be leading that charge and providing a world beating chat app that works across all phones and all desktop devices. They have every reason to provide the best chat app in the world and yank iPhone users over to it. Instead they have given up on chat. The Google Hangouts/Meet chat situation is a disaster on iPhone and on desktop. They don't even try. It's proof that they are lost.
  • JeremyNT 3y ago
    > The whole green bubble thing with Android SMS on iPhone is a problem, but the solution is to get everyone to use a different chat app. Apple will never give this up. There are so many competitors in this space, you really can't claim it's for lack of trying. Defaults are powerful, especially for Apple users.
    • microtonal 3y ago
      It's not just that defaults are powerful, it's the network effects. When WhatsApp was purchased by Facebook, there was a strong movement in Europe to move to other messengers. But it never really got off the ground because everyone is on WhatsApp. Trying to live without WhatsApp in some European countries only leads to social isolation (a bit like trying to live without iMessage in the US).
  • ongy 3y ago
    [dead]
  • quantumsequoia 3y ago
    > but the solution is to get everyone to use a different chat app And how do you do that?
    • bentt 3y ago
      Google could just leverage the very popular Gmail app and start piping people into chat from there. They don't even try. Their Hangouts/Meet app on iPhone is a withered husk.
• unstatusthequo 3y ago
  They sure are trying hard to get sued.
  • Nextgrid 3y ago
    I suspect they are hoping for it and have a rich benefactor who's willing to see this fight to the very end, in hopes of setting a precedent.
• exabrial 3y ago
  Apple is writing their own death sentence here. Beeper Mini's case will definitely be used against them when their anti-monopoly case inevitably comes about: 1. Forcing a monopoly when they force-migrated their users to iMessage 2. Maintaining said monopoly by keeping third parties out Best thing they could do is put third party clients into a MFI like program and loads of red tape.
  • freedomben 3y ago
    Why do you think an anti-monopoly case will ever come? Europe has dropped it, and US pretty much everyone in power (and all their families/friends) is an iphone user. They're probably completely unaware that there's a problem, and even if made aware they have positive vibes for Big Gray
    • microtonal 3y ago
      The EU hasn't dropped it. The consultation period is still ongoing, the news was that the EU is only tending towards not regulating iMessage, but it is not set in stone yet: https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/06/imessage-will-reportedly-get-a-reprieve-from-eus-interoperability-regulation/ https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/06/imessage-will-reportedly-g... It is very much possible that the current kerfuffle has some bearing on future regulation. That said, iMessage is not really big in Europe, Whatsapp is, so it's more interesting for the EU to regulate that.
  • tinus_hn 3y ago
    A case against a monopoly with a minority market share. Good luck with that!
    • jvolkman 3y ago
      As far as I know, Apple has the majority of the market in the US where iMessage matters most.
      • tinus_hn 3y ago
• biorach 3y ago
  How is it better than, e.g. Whatsapp ?
• znpy 3y ago
  I just wish Apple to get into another anti-trust case, ideally by the EU, over this.
  • deleted 3y ago
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• sarahintampa 3y ago
  fwiw, updating the existing app didn't work. I had to uninstall/reinstall. After authenticating with Apple vis Beeper Mini, my iPhone says a "Mac now has access to iMessage." (via https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/11/beeper-mini-is-back-in-operation-after-apples-attempt-to-shut-it-down/ https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/11/beeper-mini-is-back-in-ope...)
• malwrar 3y ago
  Relying on the assumption of an “authorized client” is fundamentally not a reliable security or anti-spam mechanism, as this Beeper saga demonstrates. A curious 16 year old casually figured out how to make a client be “authorized”, and a motivated party just demonstrated basic interference from Apple can’t stop it from continuing to practice guerrilla interoperability. Apple might be able to sue Beeper out of existence, but lets not pretend this approach is any meaningful defense against spam.
  • misnome 3y ago
    Do we know that beeper wasn’t cut off by e.g. an automated spam algorithm? I saw lots of technical discussion in previous threads that stated that they were using the same faked hardware ID for all messages… that would seem an obvious red flag.
    • freedomben 3y ago
      I'm dying to know the technical details, but I wouldn't advise Beeper to disclose because it will just make it easier for Apple to block them.
    • modeless 3y ago
      Beeper Cloud was running for years before, and Apple released a statement at the time they blocked Beeper Mini. This was not automated.
      • lxgr 3y ago
        Beeper Cloud was running on actual Apple hardware until October 2023, which is when they switched to the software emulation approach that Beeper Mini is also employing.
        • modeless 3y ago
          Yes, but if Apple's complaint is truly about security then they should have blocked it even harder before, because the cloud version wasn't E2EE. Their behavior reveals that security is not their real concern here.
• wnevets 3y ago
  edit: nm, their help page explains it.
• averageRoyalty 3y ago
  > We—of course—expected a response. What we didn’t expect was 1984-esque doublespeak. The statement is complete FUD. Beeper Mini made communication between Android and iPhone users more secure. That is a fact. Is it? Their argument about a potential increase in spam (by removing the existing annoyance barrier of signing up to iMessage with a phone number before getting full access) is valid. And from their perspective, a third party app could be doing anything with the messages once unecrypted, despite Beeper's claims to the contrary. Don't get me wrong, it's obvious Apple went looking for the first 'valid' reason to kill Beeper Mini. I also own a ~~Beepberry~~ Beepy, so I am a fan. But this isn't FUD at all, this is a potential risk to their userbases' privacy (as well as their bottom line).
  • deleted 3y ago
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• mike_d 3y ago
  > If Apple insists, we would consider adding a pager emoji to metadata on all messages sent via Beeper Mini. This would make it easy for Messages App to filter out any messages from Beeper Mini users. As an iPhone user I would love for them to do this so I can not communicate with these users. The green/blue bubble gives me an indication of the encryption being used, and presenting a blue bubble while the messages are being MITMed (how Beeper works) is something I want to be aware of.
  • modeless 3y ago
    Beeper Mini does not MITM messages. E2EE is maintained throughout. More so than iMessage actually, which sends all your encryption keys to Apple in the most common configuration (iCloud backup). Where's your concern about that?
    • mike_d 3y ago
      That is not true. iMessage content is encrypted in iCloud with keys stored in your keychain only accessible to your devices. When you add a new device to your account it learns the keys from one of your existing devices and requires touch/face ID approval. In an "all devices lost" situation the keychain is backed up to iCloud but encrypted using a key stored in an HSM that requires authentication using things only you know but are never transmitted to Apple using https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Remote_Password_protocol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Remote_Password_protoco...
      • modeless 3y ago
        You have been misled. The truth is that the iMessage keys stored in iCloud are accessible to Apple unless you have enabled the non-default Advanced Data Protection (ADP) feature. This is clearly documented by Apple themselves[1]. And even if you do enable it, your messages are still accessible to Apple in the iCloud backups of the people you are messaging, since they likely didn't enable a non-default feature like ADP. Defaults matter! [1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/102651 https://support.apple.com/en-us/102651
• xyzzy_plugh 3y ago
  > The underlying connection method is open source, for anyone to review. SSPL sure isn't open source and I'm certainly not reviewing this. At best it's source available. I'm all for separating the meaning of the term from OSI's opinions but this usage misses the mark. I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, etc.
• deleted 3y ago
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• dmitrygr 3y ago
  Final result: Apple releases official iMessage client for android, but messages sent from it show up with a little green android icon in the corner. :)
• g0atbutt 3y ago
  The funniest outcome with this whole “Apple vs. Beeper” saga would be if Apple said, “Fine use the iMessage protocol. We won’t break interoperability and you can even have full feature parity… BUT… Any messages sent this way will still show up as the dreaded “Green Bubble”. (I hope Eric and the Beeper team can pull through!)
  • rpmisms 3y ago
    If the green bubble (or teal bubble or whatever) works with iMessage, I will be happy. It's about the functionality, not the status symbol. For many people, it is about not looking like a brokie to their peers, and that's what apple counts on.
  • kbf 3y ago
    Messages sent via SMS or iMessage already look identical to the recipient, the only distinguishing feature is a small header at the top of the conversation that says either "Text message" or "iMessage".
    • quantumsequoia 3y ago
      SMS doesn't support emoji reactions, read receipts, typing indicators, high quality pictures/video, or groupchats over 10 people. These are deal-breaker for anyone that texts regularly
• riedel 3y ago
  Got myself a apple ID for fun but cannot sign in, as SMS second factor fails in Beeper Mini. Wonder if they found another way again to detect the 'fraud'.
  • oldandboring 3y ago
    You're way ahead of me then. Out of curiosity I tried to register a new Apple ID to use with the updated app and the registration page throws 400 at me no matter what I input.
• issafram 3y ago
  At what point does Apple start a lawsuit? I hope they don't, but I can't see them ignoring this.
  • quantumsequoia 3y ago
    What grounds can they sue them on?
    • issafram 3y ago
      That it's a proprietary system and Beeper reverse engineered it
• k310 3y ago
  There ARE alternatives, as posters have noted. In an iMessage to an Android user, I shared some information. Android user said that I could share the info with third user if I were on WhatsApp, but I choose not to use apps owned by companies built upon surveillance capitalism, and soon, using customer data to train AI. (Which may include Apple). Hmmmmmmm. Guess what? Signal locks out non-Signal users, WhatsApp locks out non-WhatsApp users (AFAICT, I don’t use others, and Signal is refusing to work on my systems for reasons I don’t know, and I can actually live well without it) The bubble with bright white text on a bright green background hurts only ME, the Apple user with old eyes, and I have offered old Apple gear to friends so we can FaceTime, a nifty way to reuse rather than recycle gear.
• magnio 3y ago
  Not living in US so it's fun to see people poking at big corporations like the mouse-and-cat chase of ad-blockers and anti-ad-blockers. Unfortunately, in the end, it is usually the big companies that have both the moral and technical high grounds, just like YouTube and Reddit did. Also funny to see HN trashes on Google for their Web Environment Integrity while Apple pulling off the biggest attestation scheme in history (they even shipped attestation in Safari for a year before anyone noticed).
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• TeMPOraL 3y ago
  This clearly isn't going to be solved through technical means. It makes me wonder - if Apple were to stop obstructing interoperability, how much the resulting market for competition to iMessage and other parts of the walled garden be worth? A couple billion dollars? With today's valuations, probably closer to trillions. Why then VCs aren't willing to spend a fraction of that - say a couple billion - to invest into a crack team of lawyers and sue the shit out of Apple over this issue? When at least one side of the suit is a corporation, my understanding is that American justice system is basically the game of who can outspend whom. Surely enough VCs could outspend Apple on this while still securing some probable profit in the end? Why is this not happening?
  • Nextgrid 3y ago
    So much of the current tech companies derive at least part of their profits out of restricted interoperability. A legal precedent allowing adversarial interoperability would be the death of any "engagement"-based business model, aka most of tech nowadays. Alternatively clients would pop up left and right that will strip out all the "engagement" nonsense (as well as the spyware/malware), and those will no longer be stoppable by legal trolling. Such a move would completely kill off VC's (already sick) golden goose. They would lose more than what they'd win.
    • grishka 3y ago
      In some countries it's already legal to reverse engineer software for the purpose of interoperability.
• NelsonMinar 3y ago
  Some useful history, the AOL/MSN chat wars: https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-19/essays/chat-wars/ https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-19/essays/chat-wars/ AOL finally "won" that one by making a buffer exploit in their own client part of the required protocol. Later a court required them to allow messaging interop (as part of the Time Warner merger). They never implemented it.
  • altintx 3y ago
    That story has been playing on loop in a dark corner of my brain the last few days. It's as close to an identical circumstance as I can imagine.
  • jorvi 3y ago
    Did AOL really win in the end though? My youth was in the late 90s and 2000s and I don’t know a single soul that used AOL, ICQ, or Yahoo. I imagine all of them must have been hoping for the reverse at that point, access to MSN.
    • hattmall 3y ago
      Everybody was on all three for me. That being AIM and ICQ then later MSN. I don't remember much Yahoo messenger usage, just gaming on Yahoo, but everyone was on ICQ.
    • chankstein38 3y ago
      Yeah, what? I grew up (in the same era) using AIM and Yahoo, ICQ was a little before my prime. Everyone I talk to about those days used them as well. MSN was fine but AIM and Yahoo were where it was at for the bulk of my early years of instant messaging with friends. At one point a friend even made me an AIM account because I was using MSN and they wanted to chat with me but didn't want to do it through MSN. Obviously just 1 anecdote but I just wanted to share that my experience and your experience were dramatically different.
      • jorvi 3y ago
        Perhaps it’s geographically correlated, I’m from The Netherlands, which would be West+Central Europe in terms of cultural zeitgeist. Would map neatly to the iMessage / WhatsApp divide too, if for different reasons.
• js2 3y ago
  > Messages will be sent and received via your email address rather than phone number. [...] Even worse, when iPhone customers added an Android phone number to an existing iMessage secure encrypted group chat, the Messages app would by default switch the entire group chat to using unencrypted, unsecure SMS. These two Messages features combine to create a terrible UX. When someone starts a group chat in Messages and includes a single non-Apple device, it converts the chat into a group MMS at which point anyone in the group who was added by Apple ID email address starts receiving the messages via email with text messages arriving as text attachments to those emails. The from/to addresses look like 2345678901@domain with domains such as mypixmessages.com, mms.att.net, mypixmessages.com, icmms1.sun5.lightsurf.net, etc. It doesn't matter if you have a phone # associated with your Apple ID in addition to an email address. If the person who starts the chat accidentally uses your email address (which Messages makes both very easy to do accidentally and very difficult to notice because Messages hides the actual address behind the contact name) and there's a single non-Apple device in the group, you get to be on the receiving end of a barrage of emails from which you cannot unsubscribe. When Messages converts a group to MMS, it really needs to make it obvious which recipients are email addresses and which are phone #s... it should either not hide the information behind the contact name and/or for cases where a contact has both a phone # and email addresses, it should favor the phone #.
  • ElijahLynn 3y ago
    Sounds like a great UX to me!!! /sarcasm
  • bdavbdav 3y ago
    I almost forgot that you could MMS to email addresses. Crazy times of old.
    • wutwutwat 3y ago
      You can also usually send a SMS by sending an email to your provider, ie 9495551212@vtext.com, which is the poor man's way to wire up alerting to text the on call if you've yet to implement or afford a solution with proper sms/twilio support https://www.verizonwireless.com/pdfs/user_guides/How_To_Txt_Messaging.pdf https://www.verizonwireless.com/pdfs/user_guides/How_To_Txt_...
• spdustin 3y ago
  > "We took steps to protect our users by blocking techniques that exploit fake credentials in order to gain access to iMessage." They never addressed that part of Apple's statement. I don't see how they can survive without doing so.
• etchalon 3y ago
  At some point, Apple is just going to send them a cease and desist.
• dlivingston 3y ago
  > From what we can tell, Beeper Mini was the fastest growing paid Android application launch in history. In the first 48 hours, it was downloaded by more than 100,000 people. These numbers seem very low. I would have expected numbers in the millions.
  • shmatt 3y ago
    Every consumer facing tech company with a paid product (physical or digital) I've worked at had Android as <10% of conversions. This includes just retail browsing from their phone shopping. Android users make no one money Unless they're trying to join iOS group messages I guess
    • erohead 3y ago
      Our conversion from download to paid subscription is hovering around 50% fwiw
      • orliesaurus 3y ago
        congrats eric, that's HUGE! A real pain point y'all are solving - long live Beeper!
  • shawnc 3y ago
    Really shows to me why so many developers end up focusing so much more on the iOS versions of their apps. I would have expected the same.
  • mvdtnz 3y ago
    I don't believe for one microsecond that those numbers would qualify as the "fastest growing paid Android application launch in history". I do believe that their numbers are that low - I don't know a single person who would pay to... what, have text messages appear in a different colour on other peoples' phones?
  • lambda 3y ago
    Note: "paid."
• sammyteee 3y ago
  Anyone got a referral code?
• MuffinFlavored 3y ago
  As far as I understand, in order to talk to Apple iMessage services/backend (and all auth pieces) you need a "legit" Apple ID and legit Apple hardware model #s / serial #s If you don't have that, how are they able to get auth tokens / send messages around without basically "exploiting a hidden hack that might get patched"?
  • arilotter 3y ago
    AFAIK they are using a reverse-engineered Apple binary that does the real iMessage - and since Apple doesn't update apps outside of iOS updates, Apple can't, in theory, patch it without also breaking iMessage on older iPhones.
    • zeven7 3y ago
      I'd have assumed there'd be something more going on in iMessage, like each device has a private key that needs to sign the messages, and Apple can ban any private keys that leak -- but in theory couldn't they even be prevented from leaking by secure enclave? I'm just speculating on what would have made sense, but I'm guessing that's not how it's working since Beeper Mini exists. It begs the question: why isn't that the way they do it?
      • zappb 3y ago
        Messages has existed longer than the Secure Enclave has.
        • zeven7 3y ago
          Secure Enclave doesn't have to exist for the rest of the system to work as I described. (And once Secure Enclave does exist, it can be used to further secure the private keys generated after that date.)
          • yakkityyak 3y ago
            Without Secure Enclave, remote parties (the servers) can't know where the key material came from. I'm assuming because old devices pre-SEP have to be supported, Beeper is exploiting this since there's no required residency or provenance attestation for the keys.
• kevinsync 3y ago
  Maybe this came up in the earlier threads (announcement, outage) so I apologize if it's been discussed ... This project is fantastic. The hacker spirit is in full force, and I love a good David and Goliath story. However, all the comments about demanding interoperability and protocols keep confusing me -- I don't consider APNS a protocol (like TCP anyways), it's also not incidental, extra header space to stuff data into in an existing message being transported (ala early SMS), and it's not an open relay for everybody to use. It's Apple's private message delivery system! Why does everybody feel entitled to use it if they're not using Apple products? I'm not licking boots over here, just genuinely curious. I wouldn't want to set up a mail server and then foot the bill and assume liability for whatever the hell goes through it from random people on the internet. And trust me, I'm all for civil disobedience and sticking it to the man with clever technical solutions, but given the (probable) massive costs of operating APNS, Apple's got every right in the world to close any gaps in their system and keep kicking Beeper out.. and Beeper can keep trying to get back in.. but I just can't wrap my head around making the assumption that APNS access is somehow a fundamental right that we're all being denied.
  • grishka 3y ago
    > Why does everybody feel entitled to use it if they're not using Apple products? Network effects.
    • nine_k 3y ago
      This would be "enticed", not "entitled". What a user is entitled for is listed in the ToS; who did not accept them, is not entitled. Not necessarily forbidden or blocked, but any bets and guarantees are off.
      • grishka 3y ago
        If many people around you are participating in something but you're left out because of your phone OS choice, you do still feel entitled to participate in that by whatever means necessary. It's about the social aspects more than anything else. See other comments here for people apparently getting shamed and left out of group chats for having wrong color bubbles. Remember Clubhouse, and how it was iOS-only when it was actually popular for a month? I felt entitled to build an unofficial Android app for it because so many people were on there doing interesting things, and so many other people were complaining loudly about it being iOS-only. FOMO is a powerful force.
• FridgeSeal 3y ago
  Oh yeah because this went so well last time. It took them what, a lazy few days to kill it off last time, bets on about the same, along with a “don’t make me do this again” warning?
• stillwithit 3y ago
  Stuff like this feels petty by all parties. Use an app that’s already universal if users are so desperate. Playing whack a mole back and forth over a chat app as if it’s some high minded fight for speech when countless options exist is melodrama for the sake of melodrama and engagement farming Beeper real goal is like everyone else in tech; get rich. It found the perfect marketing meme, the old David and Goliath story, to piggyback its business goals on.
  • quantumsequoia 3y ago
    I had to purchase an iPhone solely to use iMessage. Believe me, I would have loved to use any other internet-based chat app. But I just can't move my entire social circle to a different app. The network effects and friction are too high. The only thing end users really have control over is their own client. I don't know if they'll succeed in the long run, but I'm really rooting for beeper
    • krick 3y ago
      Are you saying everyone in your social circle willingly vendor-locks themselves by using an app that is available only on a specific device? That sounds just comically bad. Where is that? USA? I just checked, the iPhone market share appears to be around 57% in the USA, which is sure a lot, but still it means that every second person does not have the ability to use this app. So how comes it ends up being inconvenient for normal people, and not for iPhone users? Weird. Seriously, I'm struggling to imagine that. It suddenly reminds me of when Microsoft had to offer users to choose something other than IE because of anti-monopoly legislation. What you are telling me about iPhones sounds way, way worse than that. After all, it's not like people had to use IE before that, they just didn't know better. There was no network effect and vendor-lock with IE. Also, what's even so special about this app? I maybe could understand that, if it was unique. But come one, WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook Messenger, plain old SMS after all… And I'm not even talking about older VoIP/messengers (Skype, Jabber), community-centered apps (Discord, Slack, MS Teams) or some fringe messengers nobody uses even though they are clearly better than everything else (Matrix). By no means there is a shortage of messaging apps and protocols…
• _rs 3y ago
  Was really hoping to read about what Apple changed to break things, even if they won't explain how they worked around it
• rewgs 3y ago
  Man, what an absolute waste of engineering talent. I don't understand those in this thread celebrating the "hacker spirit." The real "hacker spirit" would be something like, I don't know, building a better alternative to iMessage. This is just a game of whack-a-mole, destined to lose.
  • smoldesu 3y ago
    Making a competitive alternative to iMessage is a game of whack-a-mole that you will always lose, too. Apple would never give a third-party the same level of control they have to integrate with iOS. So, Beeper's approach here at least makes sense to me. They aren't representing the "hacker spirit" like Torvalds or Stallman, but they are highlighting how arbitrary some software limitations can be. Their efforts here, wasted or not, will be cited when iMessage finds itself in court next time. And to Beeper, a company founded on the idea of unifying all messaging clients, that may be a worthwhile business investment.
  • quantumsequoia 3y ago
    iMessage isn't dominant because it's "better". It's dominant because it's the default. Doesn't matter how good a chat app is, iMessage users aren't going to switch
• mrlatinos 3y ago
  I really want to use this but it just seems unrealistic. I don't want to start new iMessage group chats with friends, explain to them how it's possible, only for it to break 3 days later. I knew this would happen the first time which is why I didn't subscribe. And now I don't want to create an Apple ID only to have it banned and messages lost. I love that you're pursuing this and taking on Apple, but at the same time your marketing has felt misleading and you've put a lot of users at risk by listing on the Play Store with a subscription model.
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• boiler_up800 3y ago
  If nothing else it’s a fun game of cat and mouse in the most David vs Goliath way possible, to mix metaphors. Is it likely that Apple just has an engineer working on reverse engineering Beeper to find and patch the latest method?
• nikolay 3y ago
  No, it's not. I don't get the 2FA code. It never worked before for me. Never worked with Beeper proper either.
  • quantumsequoia 3y ago
    Do you get 2FA codes when logging in from am actual Apple device? Because it might be an issue with how your apple account is set up to do 2FA that has nothing to do with beeper
    • nikolay 3y ago
      Yes, I do. I only have issues with Beeper and Beeper Mini. In fact, months ago, when I tried to set up Beeper, my Apple ID got into an "account lock" endless loop for over a month - every few minutes, I would get a popup that my account is locked, I go through the unlocking process, and a few minutes later, the whole thing repeats meanwhile asking me to rest my password. In the past, I tried creating an app password as well, but it didn't work either. Now, it fails to create an app password, but you still can't log in with an app password.
• hattmall 3y ago
  Is it possible to install macos in a virtual machine and use iMessages?
  • jejeyyy77 3y ago
    not anymore
  • heyoni 3y ago
    Yes it is. Hackintosh users have no problem using iMessage or FaceTime.
• 2233 3y ago
  how is it legal to use private apis of another company in your product? does it not count as cyber attack or potential dos?
• quantumsequoia 3y ago
  Interestingly, in the groupchat I'm in (N=67, mostly software engineers in the Bay Area), I've noticed a high correlation between people taking Pro-Beeper and Pro-Palestine stances, and those taking Pro-Apple and Pro-Israel stances
  • Der_Einzige 3y ago
    This would be for socioeconomic factors but it maps to my experience. Downvoters are simply butthurt that others are noticing this connection. Getting downvoted here is evidence that you’re speaking truth to (apple) power
• leoxiong 3y ago
  Why are people obsessed with “breaking into” Apple’s walled garden? There are already secure cross platform messaging services like Signal or WhatsApp that has feature parity with iMessage. This is a solved problem that doesn’t need another solution.
  • cubefox 3y ago
    US Americans love iMessage, nobody knows why.
    • sircastor 3y ago
      Lots of Americans have iPhones, iMessage is the default messaging on the platform, and it's actually quite a good messaging system.
    • emmet 3y ago
      Holdover of them being obsessed with SMS for some reason too. I remember having to pay 20c per SMS and 50c per MMS before IMs on phones became a thing. Wasn't hard for literally everyone to want to change to the first available client which for most people was WhatsApp, 2 years before iMessage was even released. Guess messaging was so cheap in the US that they didn't have a good enough reason to hop on the IM train for years.
  • sircastor 3y ago
    Some people are finding themselves excluded from their social group because of platform choice - basically not being able to use iMessage (sometimes) means people don't want you in the group chat (because mixing iMessage and SMS messages makes a bad experience.) It is incredibly difficult to get a social group to change messaging platforms, especially if that social group's shared interest isn't "using a good messaging platform" The easiest solution is to conform to the existing messaging platform in the group. In the case of a bunch of iOS users, that might mean leaving Android for iOS. People don't want to do this (For a variety of reasons.) So being able to participate as a first-world-citizen of the platform has its appeal.
  • jug 3y ago
• 838583727748 3y ago
  Your view on iMessage depends on your social network. If your social network uses other messaging apps, this whole exercise seems pointless. Many of you outside of the US fall into this category. Many of you technically-savvy commenters also fall into this category. But if you are a teenager in the US, 85%+ of your social network uses an iPhone, and you will not convince everyone you know to switch apps for you. The green bubble causes real problems, and Apple does this intentionally to coerce teens and others into buying their phones. It’s anti-competitive and immoral for a company of that size.
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• dav43 3y ago
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• lawgimenez 3y ago
  Time should be well spent by creating meaningful apps that can solve world hunger, poverty, water shortages and all that shit. All this circus for a blue bubble is just so hard to comprehend.
  • jagged-chisel 3y ago
    If we’re going to solve all hunger, poverty, water shortages and all that shit before we ever do anything more, then we’ll never do anything more.
  • InCityDreams 3y ago
    >...that can solve world hunger, poverty, water... Ah, but no profit there. Not being cynical, have witnessed ngo's first hand in war zones.
• locusofself 3y ago
  iMessage is possibly the most effective vendor lock-in I've ever personally experienced. I resent it, but I don't have time to fight it. Maybe 1 of the 20 people I regularly text with use Android. The amount of video/photo sharing my wife and other family members have done throughout the years is via iMessage is downright incredible.
• nelsondev 3y ago
  One thing I’m not seeing discussed in the battle of client apps, is that Apple is still paying to run the backend servers. Considering the ubiquity of iMessage, this ain’t cheap. When Beeper charges customers subscriptions for the client app, do they kick back any money to Apple who provides server side support for iMessage?
• chagaif 3y ago
  Just got a notification that it's working again and I could log in
• cdchn 3y ago
  Totally tangental but now that iPhone users are using RCS the chances of successfully sending them a message feels like its dropped by half to me-- that is about half the time my messages aren't getting through, to multiple individuals.
  • endless1234 3y ago
    iPhone is not using RCS yet. It has only been announced, to be launched some time in 2024. See eg https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2023/11/17/apple-announces-surprise-new-iphone-move-starting-2024/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2023/11/17/appl...
    • cdchn 3y ago
      Weird, I'm getting the RCS bits in Android from some iPhone people. I don't think they're using a different messenger than iMessage.
• whywhywhywhy 3y ago
  Wild the Apple pundits who were weirdly angry about this app acting completely disgusted someone would do this. So strange to see that attitude from the Apple community when some of us are old enough to remember when Apple wasn't in a position of power and we absolutely relied on these sort of projects to exist and work in a Windows dominant world.
• nektro 3y ago
  should've stayed dead
• fennecfoxy 3y ago
  Lmao Apple. Time for the EU to step in. They don't get everything done but they certainly force a lot more out of companies than other organisations.