Show HN: Beeper Mini – iMessage client for Android • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Beeper Mini – iMessage client for Android

#871

Post by Wytwwww » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 1:23 PM UTC

xwolfi wrote: post #732

Wytwwww wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure almost everyone sending messages from an iPhone to another is using it.

I'm from Europe and live in Hong Kong, in both places, iMessage to us is like Edge for Windows users: a gimmick we see auto-installed but we dont use. So many people don't have an iPhone, and we change phone number every few months anyway. The US experience might be diff, and Europe / Asia aren't a single country, so maybe it even varies within.

> I'm from Europe

> in both places

> so maybe it even varies within.

Definitely Europe is not as homogenous as that. I do also live in Europe, people do use iMessage (or just text messages in general) where I am (to a much smaller extent than the FB messenger for instance which is much bigger than WhatsApp here).

And any meaningful number of people changing their phone number every few months is certainly not my experience whatsoever. Pretty much everyone I know have had the same number of years or over a decade or even longer.

Re: Show HN: Beeper Mini – iMessage client for Android

#872

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 1:30 PM UTC

wkat4242 wrote: post #341

mikae1 wrote: post #274

Will this be available from F-Droid or as an APK? I'm using a deGoogled device. Too cool!

Nope even if you install it using aurora store it requires a Google account linked in play services (you can't even log into it manually!). So even on a device with play services but no Google account logged in I get an error logging in. On a Google free device it definitely won't work.

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Beeper Mini – iMessage client for Android

#873

Post by mikae1 » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 1:31 PM UTC

nani8ot wrote: post #579

mikae1 wrote: post #274

Will this be available from F-Droid or as an APK? I'm using a deGoogled device. Too cool!

Beeper's clients never were open source. They were based on Apache 2 licensed Element. The new client won't be open source either, given how they don't even open source their server part (contrary to their matrix bridges).

Thanks

Re: Show HN: Beeper Mini – iMessage client for Android

#874

Post by ggrelet » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 2:59 PM UTC

satiric wrote: post #869

Don't wait until I've given you access to my Google account to tell me that it's a paid service... that's just scummy and a fantastic way to lose me as a customer. Seen a lot of hype around this, but please at least be transparent. To be clear, I'm not surprised it's a paid service, and I think it's reasonable to pay for this. It just leaves a sour taste in my mouth that could have been easily avoided.

It’s written in the FAQ

Re: Show HN: Beeper Mini – iMessage client for Android

#875

Post by smashah » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 3:54 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #643

smashah wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever received C&D for your work? There's a big problem of OSS projects being TOS-trolled by billion dollar companies and having to shut down out of fear.

What would they demand they cease doing? Publishing software? If the use of this software is against their rights in some way, the end users running it would be the ones in violation. Publishing original software is protected expression.

Yes they demanded us to delete and stop working on all projects.

At the time it seemed like a serious threat.

Re: Show HN: Beeper Mini – iMessage client for Android

#876

Post by smashah » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 4:10 PM UTC

rezonant wrote: post #799

p-e-w wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Publishing original software is protected expression. That means Jack Shit in a world where a lawsuit can ruin a person's life regardless of its legal merit, with zero consequences for the corporation that filed it even if it gets tossed out by a judge eventually. LPT: Live as if human/constitutional rights didn't exist. Because if push ever comes to shove, you will quite possibly find that they indeed don't exist…

But there are consequences. Even if the financial costs are not meaningful to a big company, the backlash created by such actions can have wide ranging implications, from lost sales to loss of the public mindshare, to attracting legislative attention.

We are in an age of shamelessness and self-interest.

There's no story in the world that will get people to stop using services like Whatsapp or Instagram.

The only thing stopping these big companies is potentially setting a legal precedent that interop projects are legal.

They can potentially win such a case as it stands because the targets for their threats are few and far between.

If we as digital humans want to solidify this digital right then we need to have a unified front against threats like this. That means we need to have an OSS union behind which companies and individuals can unify if a precedent setting case ever does come up

Re: Show HN: Beeper Mini – iMessage client for Android

#877

Post by JoshTriplett » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 6:52 PM UTC

jeroenhd wrote: post #816

JoshTriplett wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With end-to-end encryption, Apple may also decide to roll out privacy-protecting client-side spam and phishing detection, which would IMHO be a really great thing. Spam protection should be on the recipient , rather than the sender .

I disagree. Email has SPF and DKIM an what have you exactly because client side filtering doesn't work right. Mail gets dropped beforr the clients even get a chance to run filters. That's not to say that requiring remote attestation or blocking third party clients entirely is proportional, but Apple should (and does) play a role in spam prevention.

SPF and DKIM are ways of signing a message, but it's still typically up to the recipient or the recipient's mail server to decide what to do with that signature. And they're only checkable on the recipient's mail server because email isn't properly end-to-end encrypted, and exposes metadata.

Re: Show HN: Beeper Mini – iMessage client for Android

#878

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 7:14 PM UTC

brokencode wrote: post #859

Domenic_S wrote: post #843

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple does not require any consumer to use iMessage, nor do they make installing alternatives such as Whatsapp difficult. iMessage is simply a messaging option. This is in stark contrast to how MS treated IE back in the antitrust lawsuit days. The fact that lots of people prefer to use iMessage -- despite myriad easily-accessible alternatives -- doesn't feel anticompetitive in the slightest; in fact making a product…

The Messages app is the only one everybody has no choice but to use though, since it’s the only one on iOS that does actual SMS, which is needed for interacting with businesses and in other scenarios. It’s also the most discoverable one and the only one that comes on the phone by default. It has a privileged place in the ecosystem, and that’s why it’s a potential target for antitrust regulation.

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Beeper Mini – iMessage client for Android

#879

Post by jeroenhd » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 8:41 PM UTC

JoshTriplett wrote: post #877

jeroenhd wrote: post #816

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Email has SPF and DKIM an what have you exactly because client side filtering doesn't work right. Mail gets dropped beforr the clients even get a chance to run filters. That's not to say that requiring remote attestation or blocking third party clients entirely is proportional, but Apple should (and does) play a role in spam prevention.

SPF and DKIM are ways of signing a message, but it's still typically up to the recipient or the recipient's mail server to decide what to do with that signature. And they're only checkable on the recipient's mail server because email isn't properly end-to-end encrypted, and exposes metadata.

SPF and DKIM can be checked client side no problem, assuming your mail server doesn't mangle the received-from headers. We just generally only use them as server-side filtering.

Re: Show HN: Beeper Mini – iMessage client for Android

#880

Post by HenryBemis » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 10:38 PM UTC

aembleton wrote: post #310

HenryBemis wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because half our friends/family/etc own an iPhone and they either use iMessage or WhatsApp, and neither is acceptable for the likes of me. And since they don't 'stoop' to the level of Signal, we can 'stoop' to the level of iMessage (but definitely not WhatsApp).

Whats wrong with WhatsApp?

It's own by Meta.