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This is very different from Beeper or BlueBubbles.

Tether is "merely" talking to your iPhone over bluetooth and the local network. It does nothing if you don't already have an iPhone. Apple should have no more reason to come after this than it does a Garmin watch that can show your iMessages via bluetooth.

As soon as someone starts using this to spam marketing messages over Blue Bubbles Apple will be all over it like a rash.

There’s bluebubbles which runs a server on a Mac and syncs your messages that way.

Its derivative OpenBubbles doesn't, though

Beeper?

Yes, I don't see why the author expects anything different to happen this time. I guess there's a new king on the throne.

Yes that sounds right.

As a general rule, Apple will shut down an operator of such service once it gets used to pump out spam.

Of course, every spammer dreams of their spam texts coming through as a blue bubble.

What if there is no operator?

Someone’s account is sending the messages and will use a particular way to sign in / send the messages. Apple will simply start to ban accounts that match that pattern.

The nice thing about Tether is that it’s read only so won’t be attractive to spammers.