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Show HN: Beeper Mini – iMessage client for Android

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471–480 of 902 posts

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

#471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m talking about the iPhone.

Messages is the same on OSX and iOS. It's not deeply integrated into the iOS by any normal definition. It's just shipped together.

Messages has a bunch of special privileges on iOS, which is why they had to add the whole Blastdoor protection framework and why it's such a juicy target for sandbox escape exploits.

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

#472

Beeper is a really cool idea by some cool people (people behind the Pebble smartwatch) but I've resisted using it for fear of bans. I don't want my Slack/Discord/Instagram/AppleId/etc to get banned for using something not allowed under the terms of service. How are people who use Beeper dealing with this? Are you just using dummy/test accounts that you don't care about or are you just rolling the dice. I would like t…

Since they've been on waitlist-mode for several years, it's not currently easy to try out in any case.

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

#473

Beeper is a really cool idea by some cool people (people behind the Pebble smartwatch) but I've resisted using it for fear of bans. I don't want my Slack/Discord/Instagram/AppleId/etc to get banned for using something not allowed under the terms of service. How are people who use Beeper dealing with this? Are you just using dummy/test accounts that you don't care about or are you just rolling the dice. I would like t…

If you have an Apple account, why are you even using Beeper? I guess it might have some advantages for convenience (multiplexing chat apps), but is that the main selling point right now? I'd imagine the target market is Android users who want to talk to people on Apple Messages. So they can just create a new Apple account, right? (Isn't that kinda hard anyway, though? You need to tie it to billing, etc.) And if that gets banned, who cares? It's not like they were using it for anything else anyway.

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

#474
post #430
post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 There's probably a cliff in complexity. Once Apple starts requesting signed attestations from the secure enclave on the devices that have one, it's game over. They probably don't just yet, since still too many people use iMessage on first-party clients that don't ha…

Apple can break Beeper without relying on the secure enclave: If Apple devices just send their serial number (IMEI for their GSM products), their servers can refuse to talk to hardware they didn't manufacture.

Non-Apple devices could just lie

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

#475

Beeper is a really cool idea by some cool people (people behind the Pebble smartwatch) but I've resisted using it for fear of bans. I don't want my Slack/Discord/Instagram/AppleId/etc to get banned for using something not allowed under the terms of service. How are people who use Beeper dealing with this? Are you just using dummy/test accounts that you don't care about or are you just rolling the dice. I would like t…

If you have an Apple account, why are you even using Beeper? I guess it might have some advantages for convenience (multiplexing chat apps), but is that the main selling point right now? I'd imagine the target market is Android users who want to talk to people on Apple Messages. So they can just create a new Apple account, right? (Isn't that kinda hard anyway, though? You need to tie it to billing, etc.) And if that…

I'm more interested in the multiplexing aspect, yes I'm iOS/macOS so I don't care about the iMessage aspect alone though I'd love to pull all my chats into 1 extendable app.

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

#476
post #38

OK, took a while to figure out what it is, as I barely know anyone using iphone. Though it's not for me, BUT if they deliver this: > Over time, we will be adding all networks that Beeper supports into Beeper Mini, including SMS/RCS, WhatsApp, Messenger, Signal, Telegram, Instagram, Twitter, Slack, Discord, Google Chat and Linkedin. We'll also bring Beeper Mini to desktop and iOS. I'm interested, even if it's paid. I'…

> as I barely know anyone using iphone. where are you located?

I'm from the Netherlands and I know plenty of people who have iPhones but I also know (and am) plenty people with androids. People use either WhatsApp or Telegram. Isn't iMessage just texting within a walled garden?

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

#477
post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the only reason I'm not confident that Apple will kill this. They wouldn't want the regulatory attention and (at least for now) this is a niche area that few people know about.

Easier to kill something when it is a small niche area that few people know about rather than wait until it gets bigger and more people use it.

Except that Matrix never profited from it. Beeper is the first company to provide a paid service for it and had their own servers. But now they are providing a paid (with a free tier) service that runs on Apple/Meta/Signal infrastructure.

This is asking to draw unwanted attention towards yourself.

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

#478
I'm sorry but don't understand exactly what this is. Is it a universal text app that you can use for all your contacts? Or do you need to know if the person you're texting with has an iPhone or not?

Given the excitement and number of upvotes I'm obviously missing something, but I'm at a loss.

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

#479
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not the developer but I also looked at that binary to help the project at some point. It's taken straight from OS X 10.8 (more precisely from an Update Combo on their download portal). It's calling NACInit, NACKeyEstablishment and NACSign functions from it (which have no entry points but with reverse engineering the offsets have been figured out). They are themselves relying on OS X system functions to get devic…

That seems like a problem. Emulating the protocol is okayish-to-gray but having the binary there will just be a straight DMCA. Wonder what the actual app is doing since this is just the PoC.

There’s no need for Apple to react to this project at all.

Eventually, someone will send spam using this app, at which point automated systems at Apple will “console ban” the hardware identifier shared by all of the app’s customers. The project presumably has a library of valid hardware identifiers collected and ready to go, and eventually that’ll be drained by spammers faster than revenue versus device purchasing allows for. Apple can just wait silently as the app exhausts their pool of hardware identifiers, each banned by pre-existing anti-spam automation, without ever acknowledging their existence.

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

#480

Thinking maybe this isn't working. I downloaded, installed. It said it detected all my chats with iPhone users and that I was 'upgraded' to iMessage chats with them. I then tried using Beeper Mini to message someone I know has an iPhone (continuing our existing chat that it 'upgraded' from SMS) and I asked him if I was coming up as a blue bubble and he said it's 'grey', not green and definitely not blue.

Can't comment on whether it works or not, but it sounds like there's a mix-up here. On iOS, it would be their bubble that is either blue or green when messaging you, not yours. To an iOS user, everyone else is a grey bubble.
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