Absolutely hilarious. Did people actually think this was going to be allowed? iMessage is a huge moat and only an act of Congress or a case verdict will force their hand. Maybe the EU legislation might.
Apple and the EU don't agree on iMessage's status as a gatekeeper. Apple's argument is that it doesn't have the required amount of users (10% of EU population/10k business users).
If they're right and Apple doesn't have the user base, the EU gatekeeper laws won't have an effect on iMessage.
As usual, Gruber was right on the money. Via Threads yesterday: "My prediction is that Apple will make changes—fixing bugs and/or closing loopholes—that break Beeper Mini. It’s untenable that there’s unsanctioned client software for a messaging platform for which privacy and security are a primary feature. It’s a very nice app, remarkably clever, and for now works like a charm, but if Apple wanted an iMessage client…
Not sure that's worth much congratulation. Is there anyone that didn't think the exact same thing as soon as they saw the story?
There were a lot! Usually taking the form of: 1. They’ll have to do a major update to iMessage, 2. But what about Hackintosh?, or 3. EU regulators will stop it
For Apple? Demonstrably so. Apple has stated as much in court filings against Epic. This is largely an American trend, third party messengers are much more popular outside of the US as the defacto standard, Apple sees clear value in the blue bubble.
So does this also now break iMessage for older iOS devices too? I thought someone said something about that to block beeper mini, Apple would have to also block older iOS devices as that’s the method they were using that wasn’t as locked down.
Looks like iMessage stopped working on my hackintosh...
As usual, Gruber was right on the money. Via Threads yesterday: "My prediction is that Apple will make changes—fixing bugs and/or closing loopholes—that break Beeper Mini. It’s untenable that there’s unsanctioned client software for a messaging platform for which privacy and security are a primary feature. It’s a very nice app, remarkably clever, and for now works like a charm, but if Apple wanted an iMessage client…
>It’s untenable that there’s unsanctioned client software for a messaging platform for which privacy and security are a primary feature. I don't follow this logic at all. Shouldn't supporting thirdparty clients be desirable if security is a primary feature in the interest of transparency? Especially if the reference client is proprietary and undocumented.
This would be the case if it were a protocol designed to be opened up for use by 3rd party clients. As it stands, this was a clever hack which would undermine the integrity of the system if left in place. Within a few weeks we’d see 100 3rd party iMessage clients, and it would be luck of the draw if the one someone downloads is secure or not.
As usual, Gruber was right on the money. Via Threads yesterday: "My prediction is that Apple will make changes—fixing bugs and/or closing loopholes—that break Beeper Mini. It’s untenable that there’s unsanctioned client software for a messaging platform for which privacy and security are a primary feature. It’s a very nice app, remarkably clever, and for now works like a charm, but if Apple wanted an iMessage client…
>It’s untenable that there’s unsanctioned client software for a messaging platform for which privacy and security are a primary feature. I don't follow this logic at all. Shouldn't supporting thirdparty clients be desirable if security is a primary feature in the interest of transparency? Especially if the reference client is proprietary and undocumented.
Third party clients offer many more cases for average users to lose their security, because you can’t prevent malicious actors from releasing “SuperMessengerSecure” that just mirrors everything off to a server somewhere.
If you don’t trust Apple, then obviously you don’t use it. If you do, then it shouldn't be possible for a 3rd party client to break that trust. Users only see iMessage vs no-iMessage and have no other way to identify the client to decide for themselves whether to trust it.
Not what he said. He said he doesn’t trust them (safe). The question you should be asking is why do you?
> 2. Since Apple has no control over the Beeper mini client, they would not consider it safe, it could easily be spying on users without their knowledge. Since I have no control over iMessage, I would not consider it safe. It could easily be spying on me without my knowledge.
As pointed out below, "they" is Apple, but I would also assume that at least 99.9% (really) of users would trust Apple more than Beeper, i they had to choose.
Let’s add a few more 9s to that, just to make it even more realistic.
As usual, Gruber was right on the money. Via Threads yesterday: "My prediction is that Apple will make changes—fixing bugs and/or closing loopholes—that break Beeper Mini. It’s untenable that there’s unsanctioned client software for a messaging platform for which privacy and security are a primary feature. It’s a very nice app, remarkably clever, and for now works like a charm, but if Apple wanted an iMessage client…
It looks to me like there is an advantageous business relationship between Beeper and their customers. As a general rule, Apple is free to change their programs and how they work. However, I think there’s a plausible argument for tortious interference here if the sole purpose was to prevent interoperability.
How are you going to make a case for tortious interference when the would be interferee is profiting by using the interferer’s resources without payment?
Keep in mind that this is spin — Erik's statement is ridiculous, and he knows it. To think that Apple would somehow not treat Beeper like any other bad actor hacking iMessage protocols is delulu.
Sure, that's fair. But if he knows that, why spend the time to build this app in the first place? Is it a marketing play? It did buy them a whole lot of attention.
Besides the obvious attention play, he might be going for an acquisition play... "Why bother writing our own iMessage for Android when we can just buy this little company that's already done it?" There's obvious issues with that plan, but that doesn't keep delusional founders from being delusional.