Beeper Mini is back
blog.beeper.com
blog.beeper.com
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 #.
The ironic part of all of this is that while the EU may be forcing Apple into supporting RCS to fix the situation, Google has resisted every effort to extend RCS to their own Voice platform.
It's really a shame that Microsoft gave up on mobile, because they really could be a real middle ground for the rest of us that just want interoperability.
Google Voice has been in maintenance mode for years. It's unlikely that Google resisted adding RCS, but rather there's been no effort to actually do it.
Nokia's Lumia phones were so good at one time. The hardware was top notch (including cameras). The software was smoother than android and more intuitive than iphone. It was just a solid platform.
I would buy one in a blink if it was available today in the high end segment. I'd not even be bothered about google's anti competitive behavior wrt youtube and other apps.
Massive shame we lost Nokia and windows phone both due to the de facto duopoly that has taken hold in the market.
I'd be sure this was why, if Google hadn't once tried to get me to use a combo SMS/MMS + some-other-Google-messaging-service app on my phone (by replacing the normal SMS app on OS upgrade—this was on a Nexus phone) that was so broken and janky it was unusable.
Like, it is for-sure the case that a rich, huge, "smart" company can fuck this up a lot worse than Apple has. iMessage is easily good enough that I haven't had to go find some alternative SMS app, at least.
Upon moving to Europe we discovered that WhatsApp is the preferred way to connect with friends, employees, social groups and schools. It was actually the driving factor in me conceding and setting up a FB account.
/sarcasm
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.
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.
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
In theory I love it but in reality it'll be dead soon as Apple has too much to gain from the walled garden they've spent decades and billions building and defending.
I probably won't try it again until it has a few months of uninterrupted service.
I still have my Macbook if/when Beeper is cut off again.
Either Beeper manages to make a client that is truly indistinguishable from old iPhones, and gets to exist for a few years, or Apple somehow manages to patch all existing iPhones in a way that makes it impossible to spoof (not sure if that's possible with old hardware that don't have a secure enclave).
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.
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?
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?
Okay, that might not be likely, but you did ask about the best case outcome.
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.
With beeper, they are enabling the functionality for android. That is every android user signed up with beeper will end up costing Apple some money to send messages to iphone (or to send messages to other android users using the same thing).
In my opinion, next step for Apple is to mandate having an apple device to be able to use an Apple ID as part of their TnC. They will keep closing loopholes in the meantime, but don't think Apple will let beeper win this, purely because of the can of worms it opens up.
You say this as if it's a bad thing, I think that would be mission accomplished for Beeper... tbf, though I suppose their moment would be over by then.
This looks like a great outcome?
Is this "THX1138"? Is this the Manhattan Project?
It's Apple management asking a messaging lead to spend a few minutes figuring out how Beeper is masquerading and submitting a fix.
If this uses copyrighted keys then it will be a bit more tricky (although fair use could still come into play).
> 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?
"Side note: many people always ask ‘what do you think Apple is going to do about this?’ To be honest, I am shocked that everyone is so shocked by the sheer existence of a 3rd party iMessage client. The internet has always had 3rd party clients! It’s almost like people have forgotten that iChat (the app that iMessage grew out of) was itself a multi-protocol chat app! It supported AIM, Jabber and Google talk. Here’s a blast from the past: https://i.imgur.com/k6rmOgq.png."
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38531759
What did they think was going to happen? Who knows? But I guess they thought it was no big deal.
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).
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.
They are pro user - for Apple ecosystem users that is. And I’m good with that.
Disclaimer: Yup I’m an Apple user. I pay good money to keep the riffraff out - or at least ID them by not being blue.
It would make more sense for Google to acquire them, and start the inevitable court fight with the best legal team money can buy instead of whatever Beeper can afford right now. But Google would probably prefer to stay out of it, so it remains a David and Goliath fight as long as possible.
Don't know if that would solve the Phone Number registration part, but thought I'd throw this out there
So you can host this on your mac, and then you can join that bridge using matrix.
I've used this once for whatsapp, and it worked quite well, also stuff like polls and reactions worked. Though I don't know how good the imessage bridge is feature wise.
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.
I assume there's some very rich benefactor behind it that is willing to fund it.
It's now an ongoing PR stunt, since Eric and Brad were rewarded handsomely in attention for the first hack.
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.
is also laughably false lol. iPhone users just want android users to get an iphone.
Meta has trashed their privacy image so FB Messenger/WhatsApp non-starters for lots of Americans. Signal, telegram don't have enough PR, 90% of Americans have never heard of them. Kik was popular but died due to their financial trouble. Discord/Groupme have found success by marketing themselves towards particular niches, but people don't really think of them as general-purpose messaging apps
Because of how likely it is to be killed though I don't think I shall be adopting it personally.
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"?
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.
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.
The tried, many times. Google Talk, Hangouts, YouTube Chat, Allo, Google Chat and probably others that I missed.
RCS may be their most successful attempt yet in the US by hijacking SMS which I guess is fairly popular.
And how do you do that?
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
That's fundamentally false given how Apple is a hardware company, and going forward they can ship a cryptographically secure hardware attestation mechanism. The issue is simply that older Apple devices were shipped without this capability, and Apple doesn't want to break them to prohibit Beeper.
But make no mistake, in a few years when those older devices are fully deprecated, there is nothing preventing Apple from shipping essentially uncrackable hardware attestation.
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.
Still, I'm glad they brought it back, and hope will continue this route.
Anything that helps break the high walls of that garden.
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.
Most people in the US use iPhones. They also like to use the default messaging app, which most of the time is iMessage. Some people like to use Android phones (privacy, cost, freedom), but still want to message their peers who use the Apple-only iMessage.
These numbers seem very low. I would have expected numbers in the millions.
Unless they're trying to join iOS group messages I guess
Threads earlier this year apparently got 70 million user signed up the first 48h. I would assume this leads to at least >1m Android users?
First example I came to think about, might be much better examples out there. Regardless, something with "more than 100,000 people" in 48h is probably not the fastest growing Android app.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/07/tech/meta-social-media-do...
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!)
For many people, it is about not looking like a brokie to their peers, and that's what apple counts on.
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.
It seemed like it would make spam and scamming over iMessage worse. At least it requires an Apple Id now.
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.
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.
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.
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)
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2023/12/11/apple-shutters-new-app...
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?
Such a move would completely kill off VC's (already sick) golden goose. They would lose more than what they'd win.
They never addressed that part of Apple's statement. I don't see how they can survive without doing so.
Ah, but no profit there. Not being cynical, have witnessed ngo's first hand in war zones.
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?
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.
When Beeper charges customers subscriptions for the client app, do they kick back any money to Apple who provides server side support for iMessage?
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.
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.
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.
Is it likely that Apple just has an engineer working on reverse engineering Beeper to find and patch the latest method?
I mean, probably the curvature of the Earth is involved, but from here this looks like a very small hill to die on.
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)
Fantastic, right?
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.
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).
Being excluded from a group chat has a huge social impact for younger people.
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
It's not that simple, you get discriminated against for having a different color bubble and using up people's SMS allocation.
We should whine about (communication) interoperability, it's critically important for everyone. Purposefully or negligently creating incompatibilities is anticompetitive and generally toxic.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Downvoters are simply butthurt that others are noticing this connection. Getting downvoted here is evidence that you’re speaking truth to (apple) power
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.
Beeper isn't "hacking" Messages... they've implemented the protocol.
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?
- 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.
Apple has no way of telling you what an advertisement or promotion is, and it’s inherently subjective.
What do you mean? I just searched on Amazon UK and can easily buy Pixels, Home Nest etc.
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.
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.
If Apple were truly acting in their users best interest, they would want their users to have encrypted and fast communication with all devices, through an open protocol or otherwise.
And yes, iOS allows 3rd party apps but not nearly with enough permissions to act as a full Messages+iMessage alternative.
I am the one who foots the bill for iMessage and APNS.
I want to be able to message my friends with Androids with the same ease as I do my friends with iPhones.
I also would like to be able to access my messages when I run Asahi Linux on my MacBook.
So, i'm all for anything that shakes up messaging and maybe returns some of it to users.
https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/why-teens-hate-androi...
I hereby demand that Google stop making changes to YouTube that prevent ad blockers from working.
Or more to the point, I should have the right to sell hacked access to Microsoft's Office 365 servers to end users and Microsoft must not take any action that interferes in those user's access.
That's reasonable, right?
Because I want to talk to my friends without being locked into Apple's ecosystem. Simple as that, I don't need any other reason.
This language about "entitlement" feels like when Google complains about people using adblockers on YT - I don't care because they're both $2T corporations, and the only "entitlement" I see is the way Apple and Google think they're entitled to my money and my data.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but people want iMessage to be an open protocol. You're talking about APNS, the "apple push notification service", which is something completely different than what beeper is doing and what folks are asking for. The message schema, format, types, encoding, max length, delivery guarantees, etc, like jabber/xmpp [1]. Push notifications are sent for iMessage, but that isn't what people want to be turned into an open protocol
Network effects.
Vertical tying.
"Slack chat is only for Slack customers."
"Google chat is only for Google customers."
And so on.
Well....if you say it is, then it is.
But the supporters of interoperability would like to...interoperate. So non-Apply customers can send messages to Apple customers and vice versa.
It's not!
> Note: Beeper Cloud’s new Oct 2023 iMessage bridge never used Mac relay servers and still does not today. It uses a similar method to Beeper Mini, but runs on a cloud server.
I'm only speaking for myself here, but I don't look at it as "being entitled to use Apple's services". I look at it as closed, non-interoperable systems as being fundamentally bad for people and for the internet. I hesitate to call them immoral, but I feel like I could argue that competently as well, if pushed to do so.
So if Apple isn't willing to allow interoperability with their messaging service that is used by hundreds of millions (billions?) of people, then I support every effort to "sneak in" and make that happen anyway. And if that means using some Apple service that isn't intended for use outside the Apple ecosystem, that's just how it has to be.
On the other hand, I would frankly just prefer that non-interoperable systems die, instead, and be replaced by functionally equivalent, but more open, systems. So I am also uncomfortable with Beeper Mini pushing more people into Apple's closed ecosystem, even if overall (in the short term, at least) it will mean a better, more secure experience for both iOS and Android users. (It's gross that Apple talks about the security and privacy afforded to users of their products, but at the same time forces their own iPhone users to send unencrypted SMS/MMS messages to anyone who doesn't have an iPhone, because keeping non-iPhone users off iMessage is a competitive advantage for them.)
In the US, where democratic principles govern and capitalism drives the economy, the regulation of corporations emerges as a necessary practice. This approach rests on the understanding that while corporations are essential for economic growth, they must operate within a framework that prioritizes the public's interest.
In a democracy, every entity, including corporations, should answer to the people. Corporations wield significant influence and power, and without oversight, this power could be used in ways that harm the broader society.
Corporations should reflect the values of the society in which they operate and not undermine social, environmental, and ethical standards set by the democratically elected government. Regulation of corporations is not about impeding economic growth but about guiding it in a direction that is beneficial for all members of society.
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.
Isn't this one of them?
A security hole existed that permitted Beeper to pretend to be your Apple device. In this case, it was being used for non-nefarious purposes, but that doesn't mean everyone would. Apple's fixing that hole seems in-line with your desired "privacy and security".
Say that to their market cap. Seems a lot of people appreciate what comes with that drawback. Revealed preferences can be a sonuvabitch.
How? Lock-in, sure - but unless you do a lot of market gerrymandering (which Epic tried but got laughed out of court), how does anything apple do stop people competing?
It’s not e.g. paying google large sums of money to avoid making its own competitor. Being big isn’t itself anticompetitive.
And on this exact topic - there is a whole ecosystem of messaging apps that exists. They just have to build their own userbase.
I love open standards, open source, whatever, but I want some things in my life to just work well without caring about the details. My phone is one of those things.
Fascinating that you say this when you literally switched to iPhone yourself.
> 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).
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.
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.
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.
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
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?
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.
2. Requiring an application made by the company to access the servers owned by a company has never in history been called a monopoly before. The precedent that'd set would be pretty laughable. It'd basically make it law that everyone has free access to private servers of any company if they can reverse engineer the protocol. You could say goodbye to anti-cheat systems that block third party clients from online games.
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.
I'm deep into the Apple ecosystem and don't see myself getting out anytime soon. But I think their stance on iMessage sucks, even while understanding the strategic reasons they're doing it.
I don't see this as "leeching off an undocumented API" as much as demonstrating that iMessage is already in a state that allows 3rd parties to interact with it, documented or not. Every time Beeper starts working again, it shines a light on the fact that iMessage was never so locked down to begin with. It also puts pressure on Apple to answer the growing # of their own customers who are frustrated by the limits. These are good things, IMO.
Apple may have every right, but that doesn't make their stance good for the ecosystem or good for consumers. This is pretty clearly about forcing people to switch ecosystems and not about security. If security was the only issue, Apple could easily provide supported iMessage APIs that make it clear that the other user is not a verified Apple user, while still allowing interoperability.
Them taking the fight with Apple should be applauded. A walled down proprietary message platform only a few can use is stupid to fight in favor of.
Apple doesn't charge for iMessage, and instead that service is funded by device purchases. Beeper is charging people who haven't purchased devices to help them parasitize the infrastructure of the service, and instead of contributing to Apple's operational expenses, they're pocketing the money.
There's no scenario where this stands, even if iMessage came to non-Apple devices Apple is probably going to charge users if they're not buying Apple devices (I can't imagine it being an ad-driven service).
They’re highlighting the closed nature of Apple’s messaging system more effectively than anyone has in a long time. I support them in doing that.
Beeper isn't "blaming" Apple for being Apple. They're saying that Apple is full of shit when they claim that Beeper hurts the security and privacy of their users.
Then don't use Beeper.
> 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.
Thankfully, you don't necessarily have to trust them since the entire process runs on your device.
> I really don't believe they're entitled to parasite off the undocumented iMessage API.
Do you also believe it's "parasitism" for a tool manufacturer to create a screwdriver that fits another manufacturer's screw shapes? That's more or less exactly what's happening here - they made a tool that fits the existing proprietary API and interacts with it.
They can blame whomever they want, what difference does it really make.
> For one, I do not want to have my Apple ID login routed through a third party.
As long as you don't use the service, then you're fine. I don't see why you should even care if other people want to use this service.
There are some very weird takes around security on this to somehow twist it into an "Apple good" scenario. No, like literally every other time in history, closed & controlled does not make it more secure.
Sort of like how Apple builds their apps?
Edit: Should have read this new post more closely. They are now requiring an Apple ID, when they weren't before.
I do applaud them for getting a home run in PR for themselves
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.
You're thinking of Beeper Cloud, which does iMessage thru a Mac Mini in the cloud.