Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Beeper Mini – iMessage client for Android

beeper.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 902 posts

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

#351

Post by stevefeinstein »

erohead wrote: post #64
xinayder wrote: post #45

From their blogpost: https://blog.beeper.com/p/beeper-cloud-and-product-roadmap > Everything changed in August when a security researcher reverse engineered the iMessage protocol. > At a high level, here’s our product plan for the near future (in very rough order, and very subject to change): > Add support for SMS, WhatsApp and Signal into Beeper Mini, using the same end-to-end encrypted client-side connection archit…

Beeper (Cloud) has been around for 3 years. It supports iMessage, Whatsapp, Signal and 12 other chat networks. We have 100,000 users on Beeper Cloud. We haven't had a single problem like the one you're describing. Not to say it will never happen.

Do you remember back when Pidgin, Trillian, and others created clients that worked across AOL, MSN, and other messengers. They worked for a while, they'd stop working, they'd update and start working, and that went over and over again. I'm not really looking forward to having that experience again.

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

#352

Post by gobeavs »

tomstockmail wrote: post #205
pyrophane wrote: post #18

I'm on the fence about using this. I don't want to switch all my conversations over to iMessage and then have Apple figure out how to ban this. That kind of feels like a recipe for lost messages.

For those trying it out or if it does get banned, here's the iMessage unregistration link: https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/

I tested it out, unregistered in the app and now I can't receive SMS from iPhones. This link says my phone isn't registered either. Yikes!

Edit: it's working now, took 15 mins to work itself out.

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

#353

Post by ebb_earl_co »

blopker wrote: post #234
jdiez17 wrote: post #126

It seems that at least the push notification registration part uses a "leaked/extracted" FairPlay private key [1]. As far as I understand, FairPlay certificates/keys should be unique to each iDevice. Couldn't Apple trivially ban all subscriptions originating from this fake device? The comment says you know how to generate more; does Beeper Mini generate one for each install? Why would Apple believe those certificates…

Does this look like the same file from the deleted repo? https://github.com/rdxunlock/albertsimlockapple/blob/main/AL... I'd love to see an open source version of Beeper with no analytics. I'd be happy to host my own notification server.

Beeper already advertises the self-hosting route: https://github.com/beeper/self-host

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

#354

Post by hedgehog »

chipgap98 wrote: post #314
bogwog wrote: post #296

This seems like it won't last, but it's AWESOME and I really hope you survive Apple's inevitable attempts to kill this. A universal chat application would be amazing, and will maybe help bring attention to the value of standards and interoperability (hopefully by governments/regulators).

I saw an article on the topic where the reporter spoke with Beeper's CEO, Eric Migicovsky. He seems to believe that blocking Beeper might cause problems for legitimate Apple user's. Obviously that outcome is something he wants, but I still think its interesting. [0]: https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/5/23987817/beeper-mini-imes...

Apple maintains iMessage compatibility with devices that are long out of support, if Beeper Mini is sufficiently similar to the client in for example iOS 12 then it makes an Apple decision to break Beeper fairly expensive. Even if they do the work to publish iMessage updates for the old iOS versions it just buys a little time before the new version gets reverse engineered, and that at the cost of poor user experience for the people with those devices in a form they will directly blame on Apple. Given all that I suspect he's right.

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

#356

Post by cityofdelusion »

ronyeh wrote: post #342
ggreer wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SMS messages on iOS have always been green. iMessage was released four years after the original iPhone.

People keep telling me this as an excuse but the original color scheme was more pleasing to the eye. The current color scheme is painful to the eyes. I know because I see the ugly green bubbles on my messages app on my iPhone. I also have an iPhone 3 in a drawer that sadly no longer works. You know you wouldn’t want to swap the green and blue bubbles.

I run dual sim, so my other number is not enrolled in iMessage and is all green. I don’t care and imagine most people don’t. It’s a neutral, normal, natural green color.

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

#357

Post by filmgirlcw »

freedomben wrote: post #288
RulerOf wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have also made that assumption, but I have to admit I'm not surprised it doesn't. IIRC, iMessage was introduced with iOS 5, which supported iPhone 3GS. The secure enclave didn't show up until iPhone 5S which shipped with iOS 7.

ah interesting, so Beeper's days may be numbered by when Apple drops support for older devices. But if they can grow quick enough then they'll have enough users that Apple can't quietly nail them and stuff their body into a dumpster.

Perhaps. They didn't start including the SE with Macs until the first TouchBar Mac in 2016. So there are many millions of non-SE devices in use right now. Of course, Apple could still decide to unilaterally drop support for iMessage on older devices, but doing that risks pissing off and probably losing for life tens of millions of users to prevent, let's be realistic, several hundred thousand users (this is a paid app, this isn't free) from using iMessage on Android using this method.

I wouldn't put it past Apple and other reverse-engineering routes might have to be taken but I don't think this is as easy of a "Apple will instantly shut this down" scenario as many others seem to.

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

#359

Post by kayson »

sircastor wrote: post #344
ronyeh wrote: post #327

This is a wonderful project. It highlights how silly Apple is. For those defending the existence of green bubbles, why don’t we swap blue with green then? Would you be okay with all your iMessages in that ugly green while your SMSes with Android friends are in calming blue? I am typing this on an iPhone 15 pro max and I have several MacBook pros (M3 Max on the way) and everyone in my family has their own iPad. I hate…

It's not the "ugly green bubble" that people hate, and ostracize others because of. It's the limitations of SMS messages coming into an iMessage group chat that can mess up the whole experience. Media is crappy, group messages don't work well, it's not encrypted. That said, It doesn't justify people being jerks about it. And yes, if the colors got swapped it would turn out the same - nobody cares about the color. I g…

That's not entirely true. By one metric, at least, the green bubble is "uglier" - https://uxdesign.cc/how-apple-makes-you-think-green-bubbles-...

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

#360

Post by hedgehog »

ronyeh wrote: post #327

This is a wonderful project. It highlights how silly Apple is. For those defending the existence of green bubbles, why don’t we swap blue with green then? Would you be okay with all your iMessages in that ugly green while your SMSes with Android friends are in calming blue? I am typing this on an iPhone 15 pro max and I have several MacBook pros (M3 Max on the way) and everyone in my family has their own iPad. I hate…

Who cares what the color is? One message type is E2E encrypted over Apple's infrastructure, and you can message while not on cell. The other is not E2E and may have carrier billing and whatever other restrictions on it.
Post reply on HN