I love the idea of beeper, but worried about the reliability of the bridges. This is super cool and give me a bunch of ideas though. Also hoping Sunbird has some other way to solve this problem.
I built an iMessage bot using Beeper
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Re: I built an iMessage bot using Beeper
#32I don't see why anyone would expect this closed-beta product to not get blacklisted by Apple as soon as it gains any mainstream traction.
Re: I built an iMessage bot using Beeper
#33In case anyone doesn't know - the founder of Beeper is Eric Migicovsky, the founder of Pebble!
Beeper originated out of their troubles getting messaging on the Pebble working.
> “We really wanted Pebble to be able to send iMessages, but we could never figure out a way to do it because there’s no API for iMessage,” he explains. But the idea for Beeper came to a head two years ago when he learned about a protocol called Matrix. “All of Beeper is built on top of Matrix, which is this open-source federated, encrypted messaging protocol,” he says.
https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/21/pebble-founder-launches-be...
Re: I built an iMessage bot using Beeper
#34I have been using Beeper for 6 months or so now. In the start it had some bugs, but now they are more and more rare (I don't use iMessages). Overall an amazing product, with what seems like a very active and product team behind which constants pushes out new updates. Highly recommended 10/10!
I'd switch in a second, but you can't use iMessage without giving Beeper your iCloud password. That's a dealbreaker for me. I wonder if they'll offer a self-hosted option at some point.
Last I knew you could TECHNICALLY self-host everything but with little documentation on how to set it up.
Re: I built an iMessage bot using Beeper
#35I don't see why anyone would expect this closed-beta product to not get blacklisted by Apple as soon as it gains any mainstream traction.
The disadvantage of not offering an API for iMessage is that there is no easy way to block clients. Apps like Bluebubbles have to work by being installed on an actual Mac and scraping messages from iMessage and Beeper uses a similar architecture[0]. Presumably they have a data centre full of actual macs (or VMs).
Re: I built an iMessage bot using Beeper
#36Reminds me of meebo
Re: I built an iMessage bot using Beeper
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd switch in a second, but you can't use iMessage without giving Beeper your iCloud password. That's a dealbreaker for me. I wonder if they'll offer a self-hosted option at some point.
Last I knew you could TECHNICALLY self-host everything but with little documentation on how to set it up.
Most of the bridges you can find here:
Documentation is here:
Re: I built an iMessage bot using Beeper
#38I don't see why anyone would expect this closed-beta product to not get blacklisted by Apple as soon as it gains any mainstream traction.
The disadvantage of not offering an API for iMessage is that there is no easy way to block clients. Apps like Bluebubbles have to work by being installed on an actual Mac and scraping messages from iMessage and Beeper uses a similar architecture[0]. Presumably they have a data centre full of actual macs (or VMs). [0] https://github.com/mautrix/imessage
It used to be that you would jailbreak an iPhone 6/7 to set up with Beeper and keep it running 24/7 - seems now that's not an option, though.
Re: I built an iMessage bot using Beeper
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd switch in a second, but you can't use iMessage without giving Beeper your iCloud password. That's a dealbreaker for me. I wonder if they'll offer a self-hosted option at some point.
When they originally had you do setup for Beeper, they would record the process, and not inform you that they were going to do that until the meeting was already open. Beeper is made by the same guy who made Pebble watch and then sold the whole kit-n-caboodle (minus developer jobs) to Fitbit when business tanked. I have have sent several emails asking Eric Migicovsky what guarantees he has that the privacy policy wil…
Not sure why but a lot of your comments are appearing as “dead”. Might want to email the admins
Re: I built an iMessage bot using Beeper
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd switch in a second, but you can't use iMessage without giving Beeper your iCloud password. That's a dealbreaker for me. I wonder if they'll offer a self-hosted option at some point.
Last I knew you could TECHNICALLY self-host everything but with little documentation on how to set it up.
I have an older Mac dedicated to this singular purpose. It works well. That bridge + SmsMatrix on my android phone means I can get my text messages & iMessages from my (all iPhone family) anywhere I can load the Riot web app.
Note that it's kind of an interesting hack: IIRC It's just talking to the local sqlite data store that the Mac is receiving messages to. I worry that apple may one day say "Nope" and shut down this "API" we were never supposed to have.