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Beeper Mini is now open-source
- adzm 3y agoHonestly I just want an Android iMessage app. If this forces Apple's hand that would be awesome.
- iAMkenough 3y agoEven if it's a slightly lesser version of their Messages app, that would be ideal. Just like their Apple Music and Apple TV apps.
- criddell 3y agoI never understood why Google struggled with this. A decade ago they should have cloned iMessage.
- zwily 3y agoI can’t tell if this is a joke about how many messaging apps Google has made or not…
- skygazer 3y agoIs that really a thing? Do Android users en mass want an additional app specifically to chat with iPhone users? There are so many alternative messaging apps that work fantastically. iPhone users aren’t really clamoring for a Google RCS app. This feels like one of those things that everyone would lose interest in as soon as they got it; it’s just the denial of it that works them up, like not being invited to a party they didn’t really want to go to. I think if Apple had organically offered iMessage for Android, it would largely be either neglected or actively boycotted by Android users.
- joelhaasnoot 3y agoTo be honest this is mainly a US thing, and only because iPhone penetration is such a high percentage. Outside of US, Whatsapp and other apps are king
- somehnguy 3y agoI don't think anyone wants an iMessage specific messaging app. But if it works on Android like iMessage does on iPhone, I bet people would use it. On iPhone iMessage isn't a specific app, the single app just communicates via iMessage or SMS depending on the participants. In my circle in the US I don't know anyone that uses a 3rd party messaging app on either platform because that really only works if everyone you want to talk to also uses that specific messaging app. Switching depending on who you're talking to is annoying, so (people I know) don't.
- chipgap98 3y agoAs a former android user, yes this is something I wanted badly. It is much less convenient to be in a group chat with an android user.
- Rygian 3y agoAs a lone data point, I'm an Android user and I really don't know what iMessage is, why it exists, and why I should care at all. I've never met anyone whose choice of instant text app is conditioned by the hardware they use.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y agoAt this point I wish people from the EU would just understand "Congrats, this doesn't apply to you." The messaging preferences in the EU are totally different due to historical reasons, primarily the high cost of SMSes at the end of the aughts. In the US, the iMessage is by far the dominant, default messaging system for iPhone users. And iPhone market share is much higher in the US than the EU.
- wvenable 3y ago> Do Android users en mass want an additional app specifically to chat with iPhone users? Sure. I already have a different app to chat with WhatsApp users, Facebook messenger users, Discord users, Reddit users, etc.
- pelagicAustral 3y agoAs a non-North-American, Beeper mini keeps me thinking if the whole point of this feud is about the colour of the bubble surrounding a message. Of, course, I know there is more than that, I mean, there must be... but so far, the debate of whether or or not the common user cares about the cryptographic security of their conversations online does not seem to strike me as the selling point for this type of implementation.
- candiddevmike 3y agoA lot of iMessage user angst around this boils down to "how dare other folks have the privilege of blue bubbles without paying for them"
- shermantanktop 3y agoI already get increasing iMessage spam (e.g. random “hello”). I don’t love the idea of opening the door to a large population of additional users unless they are subjected to equivalent abuse controls. And I can’t tell from the discussion so far whether that’d be true or not. Having worked on large scale fraud systems before, the only controls that work are those where users are risking something of value when they commit abuse. A paid account with a lot of valuable history is great. Banning a free and easy to replace/farm account is useless.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- martimarkov 3y agoNo it’s because I’m not sure if the messages I send to them can be easily harvested. Same goes for photos I have shared. Maybe it’s naked photos. Maybe they are photos which show me doing something considered illegal. Idk let’s say I’m speeding on my private road and I send the video which seen out of context is damaging to me. When the user uses iMessage I can be sure if it leaks - he was either hacked or shared the photo. If he uses a 3rd party client MY data can now be harvested by the 3rd party without my consent or knowledge. The knowledge is the key here because apart from the original 2 reasons for a leak now it’s also the other option of 3rd party app harvesting data. Get China as an investor is a year or two and… now my data 100% will be harvested.
- adlpz 3y agoI guess this kind of fully removes the "they're making money out of it" argument from the discussion on the moral(?) implications of reverse engineering the iMessage proto. Now it's just a matter of: is Apple justified in actively sabotaging interoperability in general?
- bigyanshr 3y agoI don’t think any business is obliged to make their products/services interoperable. It’s their business and their decision.
- candiddevmike 3y agoAt a certain level of adoption, they should be forced to, IMO. Our monopoly laws never envisioned self contained platforms/marketplaces
- olliej 3y agoSo if a company is large enough it should be forced to provide free use of its infrastructure? Can I also demand google provide me with free use of their infrastructure?
- wefarrell 3y agoIf it's the only way to achieve interoperability with a communication protocol, then yes. Core infrastructure like this should be treated and regulated more like a utility.
- jmye 3y agoSuggesting that iMessage, and not SMS/data connectivity, is “core infrastructure” is bizarre, especially given that no one else in the world uses it or cares about it - essentially proving that it’s not.
- junofan 3y ago
- Zetobal 3y ago16 year old dude reverse engineers iMessages AND writes a better messaging app than google with their 99 attempts over 20 years.
- rezonant 3y agoGoogle Messages (the current RCS client) is very good. It's far from the first good messaging app they've built. The 99 messaging apps meme is about Google just making another one for no reason. Kind of like "that's enough slices"
- stbenjam 3y agoApple has done a good job of making it feel exclusive. It’s like the Berghain of message apps. I wish more friends would move to WhatsApp.
- caboteria 3y agoMeet the new boss, same as the old boss.
- joelhaasnoot 3y agoWhile true, at least there isn't a hardware lock-in.
- pyromaker 3y agoBold move! Can Apple just acquire the Beeper Mini team to stop this move? Or they could acquire them to make an official Android iMessaging app.
- rezonant 3y ago> Can Apple just acquire the Beeper Mini team to stop this move? No... the code is already released.
- zbowling 3y agoNo, it's not because this isn't Beeper Mini. The op got the title wrong, and nobody is clicking the link and reading the readme in the source.
- fimdomeio 3y agoIf code has been released as open source then the code is out there now. Seems too late to stop. I would also question if apple has any benefit in launching an android app. iMessage is interesting to apple as long as it forces people to buy apple products.
- rglullis 3y ago[flagged]
- chipgap98 3y agoFrom a business perspective I don’t think that would make sense. From a user perspective I wish they would just open it up.
- lolinder 3y agoI support the idea that Apple should be allowed to keep it exclusive. I think it makes the experience of using their products worse, but that's their prerogative and the government shouldn't step in to intervene. Signal, WhatsApp, Discord, and others are all available to fill in the gap, so this isn't a monopoly case except insofar as a certain segment of the US population has an irrational reaction to blue bubbles.
- rglullis 3y ago> should be allowed to keep it exclusive. Not what I asked. Let's take as a given that they are allowed to keep it exclusive. The question is why should them? I am also not interested in "it makes sense for their business". Unless you are an Apple employee or a significant stockholder, why would anyone prefer iMessage to be exclusive?
- willseth 3y agoYou're asking specifically why would any particular iPhone user want iMessage to be exclusive? It's not that they actually affirmatively want it to be exclusive, it's that they simply don't care. They either only communicate with other iPhone users, or a few green bubbles don't bother them. Most of the advocates for iMessage on Android are Android users. It's not complicated. Why would Apple put in the effort to open up iMessage when their customers don't care about it and only their competitor's customers do?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- johnnyapol 3y agoSomething worth noting: unless I'm missing something, this isn't Beeper Mini (the Android app) but the iMessage-Matrix bridge Beeper created. However, this is still handy if you have a Mac or jailbroken iPhone (edit: for registration, seems like it's not required after the initial setup) as you can self-host it.
- iwanttocomment 3y agoI got an iPhone 15 Pro Max last month. It's great, I dig it. I'm a case-free dude and there are zero scratches on the screen or titanium, the industrial design is tight and amazing. There's finally USB-C, and the camera is great. This was an expensive phone, but it's a timeless design and unless something crazy happens, I strongly suspect it's actually going to take me into 2030. But I have to tell you. Not a single friend has commented that I'm now on an iPhone. I asked my elderly mom - yes, I previously got her an iPhone before I did, I'm a good son - if I had obtained the magic blue bubbles. She was like "oh yes, I thought something had changed." I am not sexier, thinner or more popular since I suddenly appeared with blue bubbles on iMessage. My own (iPhone-toting) adult daughter didn't mention it. IMO, nobody outside of teenagers care.
- code_duck 3y agoPeople say only teenagers are keyed into it, but I’ve gotten comments from people in their 40s that my Android phone was lame or “I don’t know why you bought that thing”. Not to the extent that it affected my relationships with them though.
- itsmartapuntocm 3y agoSounds like a good way to suss out the materialistic people in your life to be honest.
- caslon 3y agoHonestly, it's probably just small talk. Normal people tend to try to have opinions on things to signal worldliness to other people. It's akin to when a coworker mentions hating a teenage pop star, or a sport. The vast majority of the time, they aren't expressing deeply-held conviction: They're just trying to fill the air with noise in a way that provokes a sense of comradery.
- code_duck 3y agoIt’s not because they thought my Samsung was cheap, rather they believed Android is inelegant or tacky compared to iOS. Another part of it was the lack of interoperability with FaceTime and iMessage.
- lolinder 3y agoThis link is to the iMessage bridge that they open sourced 10 (edit: 2) days ago. Has anything changed since then, or is this a duplicate of this? Edit: 700+ comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38722246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38722246 Edit: correct link: https://blog.beeper.com/p/imessage-and-phone-registration-are https://blog.beeper.com/p/imessage-and-phone-registration-ar...
- syrusakbary 3y agoBeeper open sourced the iMessage bridge about 2 days ago: https://blog.beeper.com/p/imessage-and-phone-registration-are https://blog.beeper.com/p/imessage-and-phone-registration-ar... (although I realized one hour ago, that's why I posted it!)
- lolinder 3y agoOops, you're right, I mixed up the posts. This is the actual duplicate, still has 700 plus comments so I was correct that this is a duplicate of a story that has already been covered extensively: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38722246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38722246
- constantly 3y agoJust based on the most cursory look, which took less time than it took you to write your comment (considering the links you added taking more time than typing…), they are different repositories by different people for different things.
- lolinder 3y agoI mixed up the posts. There have been a lot of high ranking Beeper posts lately. The one I was thinking of only had 700 comments, but I think it's fair to say that this is a duplicate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38722246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38722246
- zbowling 3y agoCan we get a title fix?
- guptaneil 3y agoThis whole debate seems asinine to me. Erik must know he's in the wrong here. The idea that we can force any company to allow third party clients to their service by regulation is an obviously bad idea. Just because Beeper (probably) isn't doing something shady with user data doesn't mean Apple must be required to trust them. What if I make a 3rd party client that actively records my users' iMessages and sells them to Facebook? Should Apple be required to support my app too? If not, are they expected to audit and vouch for every third party client? If yes, how is Apple supposed to make any claims about the security of iMessage if I have no control over the client my recipient might be using? The whole interoperable API argument comes from the same place as "encryption where the good guys have keys," yet somehow demands for interoperability seem to be much more popular on HN. The E2E in E2E encryption stands for end-to-end, which inherently requires trusting both ends. Otherwise you might as well not have encryption. Note that whether or not companies should be required to support third party clients is a different debate than whether or not Apple should be required to support Android, even if the end result happens to be similar in this case. I think most people defending Beeper are interested in the latter and are willing to burn down encryption to get it via the former. As a user, sure I'd love for my Android friends to use iMessage too. But this is not the way. (To be clear, I don't think we should regulate that Apple has to support Android either. If I develop a new OS, would every company be required to build a client for their service for my new OS too? But at least I understand the merits of that debate.)
- nikanj 3y agoThis project exists so Google can go to the (EU) regulators and demand Apple stop anti-competitive actions and lets poor small-time startups like Beeper freely interact with iMessage. The EU is much more likely to protect Beeper from Apple than Google due to them being in the same weight class, so this is a solid strategy.
- neontomo 3y agoI was using regular Beeper to consolidate my chat apps into one, but this mess with Android to iPhone has made everything so unstable that I dropped iMessage from the app. I wish they hadn't rocked the boat with Mini, it's affecting the users who don't try to circumvent Apple's lock-in too.
- bluesign 3y agoBeeper (before mini) was working with iMessage by relaying messages from VMs, probably one VM for x users. November 15 ( or a bit earlier, but communicated on that date) they switched to new iMessage bridge, where Beeper client directly communicated with Apple servers. Beginning of December they launched Beeper Mini. My theory is: their move to move from VM relay to new bridge caused problems, but VM relay was not sustainable with growth. Maybe Apple started to require re-validation, maybe it was like this to begin with. So eventually they rolled the dice with Beeper Mini and in the end existing Beeper users have to provide a Mac for validation. I think this will be good for Beeper, as I guess slowly they will retire iMessage totally. And focus on the on the other bridges. They are a bit more sustainable now.
- lopkeny12ko 3y agoLinus Sebastian (online tech media personality) sums up my thoughts on this perfectly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXqivw5YLys&t=149 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXqivw5YLys&t=149