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> “Each time that Beeper Mini goes ‘down’ or is made to be unreliable due to interference by Apple, Beeper’s credibility takes a hit. It’s unsustainable,” Beepe
by LeafItAlone 3y ago
> “Each time that Beeper Mini goes ‘down’ or is made to be unreliable due to interference by Apple, Beeper’s credibility takes a hit. It’s unsustainable,” Beeper writes.
This was my feeling from the first time I saw it on HN. I am in the Apple ecosystem, so I had no need for it anyways, but I didn’t expect a product to last when it relies on Apple not restricting something they clearly want to restrict.
It clearly got them a lot of press, attention, and recognition. But also indicated, to me, that they are just not reliable.
The team seems very intelligent and capable. I truly hope they find something to do next that doesn’t rely on such a fragile bridge.
- intrasight 3y ago> The team seems very intelligent and capable They (founders/team) will be fine. Young, ambitious, and now well-known.
- JoblessWonder 3y agoThis is what I have been saying every time this is posted! There is no way they had the runway to continue this and alienating their customers by being unreliable. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38649081 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38649081
- barbs 3y agoFrom a marketing point of view, I agree - for a paid product it's not exactly reliable. If you take away all the marketing fluff though it's a pretty cool open-source project, like yt-dlp or adblock origin.
- willseth 3y agoAnd I doubt it would have gotten killed, or certainly not as swiftly, had it been an open source community based project, e.g. Hackintosh. But obviously that wasn't the point.
- Aloha 3y agoI still think Apple has a missed opportunity with iMessage - dual platform support 10 years ago would mean no WhatsApp, which is universal is much of the world. Hindsight is always 20/20 I guess.
- glfharris 3y agoDoes this matter to them though? Does apple care about having the dominant messaging platform if it's no longer a hook to get people to buy apple devices.
- omeid2 3y agoYeah, why be the dominant messaging platform when you can be the the dominant platform without any qualifier.
- criley2 3y agoThey aren't the dominant platform regardless of qualifier. Android has a 70% global market share. They aren't even the dominant platform in any country, barely breaking 50% in a few. What's next, are we going to call OSX the dominant OS platform lol
- porridgeraisin 3y agoThey are coming to be. First of all, it's simply completely unaffordable in developing countries so you can't realistically consider them part of the market. In rural India, an iPhone 15 pro Max or whatever is more than a year of income for many. Coming to countries like the us, studies show that among younger folks, apple's market share is close to 90% [1] [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-rules-gen-z-nearly-90-percent-have-iphone-survey-2023-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-rules-gen-z-nearly-90-... The legal jargon surrounding what dominance is remains completely irrelevant, just like the legal system itself -- the punishments are pocket money for these companies, so it's mostly ceremony to keep lawyers employed. But from a logical standpoint, they most certainly already are in many segments, and are coming to be in other segments.
- tambourine_man 3y agoI’m sure they had this coming. It’s obvious Apple wouldn’t let them use their servers for free. The only positive outcome from this endeavor is recognition, which they achieved.
- makeitdouble 3y ago> It’s obvious Apple wouldn’t let them use their servers for free. People keep repeating this line .... but would Apple have allowed them to pay f or iMessage ? How much ? Would then Google be able to pay to access iMessage ? I see no price or condition where Apple would have let anyone touch their walled garden. Free or not has never been an element of the conversation.
- tambourine_man 3y agoRight, not even paid. It’s their servers, they can choose who uses it.
- makeitdouble 3y agoThe intersting part of this is to find where the line gets blurry. For instance is it ok for legitimate Apple ID owners (e.g. people who actually own an iPhone) to access iMessage through a third party spoofing their devices. I'd say yes, even if Apple can't separate them from the other problematic accesses.
- m463 3y ago> It’s obvious Apple wouldn’t let them use their servers for free This is ridiculous. It's like comcast restricting or charging people for emailing customers with a comcast address.
- tambourine_man 3y agoIf you know how either service works, it’s not like that at all.
- m463 3y ago> I am in the Apple ecosystem, so I had no need for it anyways I would like apple to allow chats to be exported. They kind of let you export photos and videos, but not chats, which also include photos and videos. I know people who have chats with their (dead) loved ones who have lost everything when they lost or broke their phone.
- andrepd 3y agoA clear example of why you should own your data. Sadly, the prevailing sentiment even here on hn is "but apple's ecosystem is soo pretty".
- paulmd 3y agoThere’s no problem with getting the data on a mac. You just can’t spoof devices onto the service to do it.
- d3nj4l 3y agoIf you have a mac there’s an open source project that exports iMessage messages: https://github.com/ReagentX/imessage-exporter https://github.com/ReagentX/imessage-exporter
- jazzyjackson 3y ago