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New Beeper Android app – Open beta test
- ZephyrOhm 3y agoWhy do we need a Google account for this service ? What's the point of allowing an app to be independent and E2EE if everything is also linked to Google Accounts? When will the software community stop automatically utilizing the most dominate services for every implementation Is there a service similar to Beeper that doesn't require a Google account?
- wnevets 3y ago> On-device iMessage bridge (like Beeper Mini) is not enabled at this time. Wasn't this the reason to use beeper on android?
- hbn 3y agoIt was one of the features, but it's existed for a while outside of the iMessage support. It just got a lot of eyes on it when they got the iMessage hack working (which Apple broke last I heard, not sure the current state of it)
- yoavm 3y agoI use Beeper on Android to have one app through which I send messages on WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram etc. I never cared for iMessage support.
- zer0zzz 3y agoMeta had better rollout their WhatsApp bridge thing soon
- barrenko 3y agoThis works?
- fooqux 3y agoDoes for me, although I do self-host their stack. It's been surprisingly stable, given what's actually happening behind the scenes.
- yoavm 3y agoIt works great for me. No support for complex things: calls, message requests, and probably a few more. But most days I don't need to open any other app, and when someone asks me which network they can contact I honestly just don't care anymore. They all look exactly the same on my phone.
- neodymiumphish 3y agoI switched from Android to iOS for the first time ever last month (was on Android since the very early 2010s), and I still use Beeper for everything but iMessages.
- chankstein38 3y agoCurious how you're finding it so far? I mowed my Note20 Ultra in June of last year and replaced it with a 14 Pro Max then just last month went and swapped back to an S24 Ultra. I found Apple to be too restrictive. The OS level stuff was one thing but the app store lacking things like emulators or vape apps because "Apple said so" rubbed me the wrong way, whether I need them or not. Plus I like writing python on my phone.
- DANmode 3y agoweb-app.pax.com may be relevant to somebody's interests, here!
- neodymiumphish 3y agoI’m not doing anything super technical on my phone, so I can’t provide any opinion about things like code writing or testing from it. I’ve found iOS 17 to be amazing so far on my 15 pro max. My only persistent irk is with the notification management. If a notification pops up that I don’t care to interact with, I’d like the option to swipe it away and have it actually go away. Instead, that initial banner can only be swiped up to make it go to the Notification Center, where it has to be swiped away or opened. Everything else about the device is phenomenal for me. Battery life (even capped at 80%), 1Password integration, Focus Modes, and Shortcuts.
- MBCook 3y agoIt’s the reason they made the news. Their ability to bridge other networks may be useful to you. It’s what they did before the iMessage thing. I agree though a ton of their possible demand is gone now due to that. Add in RCS later this year, and even if iMessage came back I’m not sure it would be worth it to many. But hey. I didn’t know they existed before that. I do now. That’s something. I also distrust their judgement based on their actions. But I’m sure that not true for everyone who now knows they exist.
- Rebelgecko 3y agoFor me, the killer feature is being able to keep up with my various non-SMS/MMS/RCS conversations (with prompt notifications) without having to install the Facebook app et al
- meowtimemania 3y agoHow does beeper work? Do I have to give beeper full access to all the different accounts I use for messaging?
- yellow_lead 3y agoI've been on the wait-list for at least a year I think? "Open beta test" plus a wait-list is quite weird.
- starik36 3y agoIf you get an invite from someone, it jumps you to the front of the line.
- mike_d 3y agoSo viral marketing.
- Rebelgecko 3y agoI was on the wait list for a while too (I think my place in the waitlist even went backwards) and someone from HN wat nice enough to hook me up with an invite. I'm happy to pay it forward, the only caveat is that I think the referral code has to be sent via a chat method that beeper supports. Feel free to email me (HN username @ big G's mail service) with a GChat/WhatsApp/SMS address.
- SalariedSlave 3y agonow if only I had a small android phone I could install this app on...
- dabluecaboose 3y agoHoping Eric pops in here like he does on other Beeper threads and sees this. I'm still checking every day for a small android phone. I found my Xperia z3 Compact in a drawer the other day. It was immediately such a pleasure to hold, I love the concept of having something as powerful as a smartphone in such a small package.
- kh_hk 3y agoHave you looked into the Jelly Phone? I used mine for over a year until I destroyed the battery. Was definitely small and got used to it pretty quick
- SalariedSlave 3y agoYes, Jelly phone seems decent, though I'm not a fan of the "rugged" design. I liked the Palm Phone, great concept. But they don't make them anymore.
- erohead 3y agoThat's the dream...
- mcsniff 3y agoI want to use Beeper, but funneling all my communications through hosted bridges (especially so Signal) is gonna be a nope, until they release more very deep technical and verifiable information about how on-device bridges work. I'm big on unified messaging from the libpurple days, but now 99% of my chats are in Signal so perhaps I am just not the target demographic for this.
- Ambroisie 3y agoWhen looking at their bridge documentation for my own homeserver, I noticed that they do provide a way to self-host the bridges to be used with Beeper's homeserver as well. See https://github.com/beeper/bridge-manager https://github.com/beeper/bridge-manager
- raybb 3y agoYou may be interested in a feature in the new app: > On-Device Signal Bridge Haven't tried it yet.
- anyekwest 3y agoI use texts.com instead, honestly has worked better for me than beeper
- lrvick 3y agoBeeper at least has source code for the bridges, which you can have some hope is the same code that they run and that they don't get court orders to look at the messages. If they ever chose to implement remote attestation for bridges, and you chose to use an open source matrix client to control your local keys, there is at least a potential path for you to prove they can't look at messages so you don't have to trust them. You also have the option to self host bridges and take your ball and go home at any time, given that Matrix is an open protocol. Minimal lock-in. Texts.com by contrast is completely proprietary as far as I can tell, with no path to self host, so it is strictly worse than Beeper in every way in terms of transparency.
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- ForHackernews 3y agoInteresting! Anyone here remember Pidgin? It was such a fantastic app for chatting with friends on AIM, MSN, ICQ, gchat (XMPP), and IRC all from one interface. It even had an "off the record" (OTR) plugin that was an early example of end-to-end encryption. It was a good illustration of how an open source app could surpass all the proprietary alternatives because it wasn't subject to the same incentives as a commercial company. Although obviously all those companies wised up and killed XMPP...
- shrimp_emoji 3y agohttps://www.bbc.com/pidgin https://www.bbc.com/pidgin
- ForHackernews 3y ago? I was talking about https://pidgin.im/ https://pidgin.im/
- szszrk 3y agoPidgin was (is) great, but that was possible with jabber transports on any client. I had multiple major closed networks, blogging platform, RSS, IRC and more in one jabber/xmpp client. Cli, phone, second computer... No problem, including self hosted. Miss those days when companies didn't invest into building walled gardens.
- l72 3y agoI still use pidgin daily for Slack. I've even written a libpurple custom protocol for our own homegrown app.
- ChainOfFools 3y agoRemember? Pidgin is still a core piece of infrastructure in our company's managed services platform, and not for lack of interest "upgrading" but because it's just exactly the right tool for the job for certain kinds of internal company messaging, with self-hosted XMPP. Completely defining your own secure perimeter by self hosting everything possible makes for extremely perfunctory audits by regulatory bodies for the industries (finance, mainly) we support.
- arcastroe 3y agoI want to try it, but I don't want to become dependent on it if it will transition to a paid product in the future (It's cool, but I probably wouldn't pay for it). How long will it remain free to use?
- ajross 3y agoThat's a reasonable concern, but in practice the likelihood of the product being killed by malicious counterinteroperability games by Apple (and the other proprietary backents too) is far higher than the chance you'll be screwed by the manufacturer. Beeper isn't in a business that's every going to make them significant money. Their core value proposition is, ironically, that reverse engineering iMessage is "just hard enough". If it becomes too hard, they fail. But if it becomes too easy, they fail too because everyone will launch Apple-compatible chat apps! In fact the worst case is that the protocols end up standardized, in which case they'll have to compete with genuine open source implementations. Basically, I'm absolutely in their corner in this fight, but I'd never bet on Beeper as a product.
- septic-liqueur 3y agoI would gladly pay a few bucks a month for such product. It solves a real problem
- wkat4242 3y agoBeeper is already a paid product at $10 per month, see beeper.com
- thatloststudent 3y agoUsed to be that way, they decided to give it out for free for the time being. [1] [1] - https://blog.beeper.com/p/beeper-is-now-free https://blog.beeper.com/p/beeper-is-now-free
- wkat4242 3y agoOops thanks. Should have checked my link but it feels like I only looked at it a couple months ago.
- maelito 3y agoThe app tells me I need Google messages to handle SMS. But I don't want to depend on Google on my phone.
- ryukafalz 3y agoI'm wondering if this app will eventually work with other (e.g. self-hosted) Matrix accounts or if it'll remain locked to Beeper's.
- yoavm 3y agoYou can communicate with other self-hosted Matrix accounts already. I think that was always the case.
- zufallsheld 3y agoI think what OP meant is if you could use the beeper app with your own matrix account, not with username@beeper.com.
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- flancian 3y agoI've been an early access user for a few months and I'm really enjoying Beeper -- I hope they continue to deliver like this and can scale the operations as needed. I currently use through it: Telegram, WhatsApp, RCS (Android Messages), Signal. Beeper is built on Matrix and their client is based on Element but I would say the experience is slightly better than native; for example I prefer how client verification works in Beeper over vanilla Element. Congrats on the open beta!
- solarkraft 3y agoI'm happy about every new Matrix client! It would be cool if they would release it as FOSS so it could be used generically. There's a painful lack of (average, non-technical) user friendly Matrix clients.
- GGerome 3y agoI try to register, i receive code, I apply it then unable to register, tried twice, uninstalled this app..
- barrenko 3y agoSo all of the messaging apps I use are just damn protocols?
- ranguna 3y agoAlways have been
- shock 3y agoAnyone have a referral code? TIA