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Beeper Mini is back

blog.beeper.com

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Re: Beeper Mini is back

#81

Post by solardev »

fooey wrote: post #75
radlad wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems clear to me that Beeper is playing a game of chicken with Apple. If Apple continues to cut off Beeper's access, it makes an antitrust argument stronger (a la https://9to5mac.com/2023/12/06/eus-imessage-antitrust-invest... )

The Beeper vs Apple battle is already getting the attention of US legislators https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/10/senator-warren-calls-out-a...

There's something funny about Warren posting on Twitter while shouting about antitrust. I really wish government wouldn't make public announcements on closed platforms.

-----

That aside, it seems like an easy way around that would just be for Apple to adopt RCS in addition to iMessage.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#83

Post by duped »

martinky24 wrote: post #13

These Beeper folk sound a bit entitled. As was repeatedly mentioned in the other thread [1], building production applications on top of an undocumented and unsupported (in terms of backwards compatability, etc) API is a nightmare that should be avoided. Apple has every right to change their API, if they do Beeper will go down, and Beeper will blame Apple. I understand Apple's incentives to not want to be in this situ…

I don't know where you're getting "entitled" from. They clearly don't care what Apple does, they have plans and designs to work around it.

Beeper isn't "blaming" Apple for being Apple. They're saying that Apple is full of shit when they claim that Beeper hurts the security and privacy of their users.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#84

Post by chewmieser »

matsemann wrote: post #46
martinky24 wrote: post #13

These Beeper folk sound a bit entitled. As was repeatedly mentioned in the other thread [1], building production applications on top of an undocumented and unsupported (in terms of backwards compatability, etc) API is a nightmare that should be avoided. Apple has every right to change their API, if they do Beeper will go down, and Beeper will blame Apple. I understand Apple's incentives to not want to be in this situ…

When did HN get so anti-consumer, anti- hacker , anti-freedom, pro-proprietary? Them taking the fight with Apple should be applauded. A walled down proprietary message platform only a few can use is stupid to fight in favor of.

I think we can commend their efforts and call out their entitled messaging at the same time. These are not mutually exclusive.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#85

Post by mattl »

xd1936 wrote: post #70
martinky24 wrote: post #13

These Beeper folk sound a bit entitled. As was repeatedly mentioned in the other thread [1], building production applications on top of an undocumented and unsupported (in terms of backwards compatability, etc) API is a nightmare that should be avoided. Apple has every right to change their API, if they do Beeper will go down, and Beeper will blame Apple. I understand Apple's incentives to not want to be in this situ…

Your Apple ID login is not routed through a third party when you use Beeper Mini. You don't have to input your Apple ID at all. Edit: Should have read this new post more closely. They are now requiring an Apple ID, when they weren't before.

> Phone number registration is not working yet. All users must now sign in with an AppleID.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#87

Post by hu3 »

SpaceManNabs wrote: post #53
oefrha wrote: post #15

> Android and iPhone customers desperately want to be able to chat together with high quality images/video, encryption, emojis, typing status, read receipts, and all modern chat features. There are numerous chat apps with those features, so I can’t see why people were “desperate” about it at all. Better yet, those existing chat apps aren’t likely to stop working tomorrow.

> iPhone customers desperately want to be able to chat together is also laughably false lol. iPhone users just want android users to get an iphone.

> iPhone users just want android users to get an iphone.

That's what Apple wants. So they maintain arbitrary limitations to incentivize their customers to also want it.

"Android? You're buying it wrong"

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#88

Post by distortionfield »

matsemann wrote: post #46
martinky24 wrote: post #13

These Beeper folk sound a bit entitled. As was repeatedly mentioned in the other thread [1], building production applications on top of an undocumented and unsupported (in terms of backwards compatability, etc) API is a nightmare that should be avoided. Apple has every right to change their API, if they do Beeper will go down, and Beeper will blame Apple. I understand Apple's incentives to not want to be in this situ…

When did HN get so anti-consumer, anti- hacker , anti-freedom, pro-proprietary? Them taking the fight with Apple should be applauded. A walled down proprietary message platform only a few can use is stupid to fight in favor of.

When the VC money got tangled in the roots.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#89

Post by starkparker »

qrohlf wrote: post #29

I’m curious what their best-case outcome is here. It’s fully transparent at this point that Apple has no appetite for a third party iMessage client on any platform and will take whatever technical steps needed to prevent this from happening. I’d wager heavily that even if Beeper plays cat-and-mouse to the point where they’ve exhausted Apple’s budget for blocking them and somehow managed to avoid Apple’s legal team pu…

Best-case outcome is that Apple decides engaging in an arms race with a motivated competitor isn't worth the time or effort and they enable some (probably limited) interop.

I can imagine a "blue-green" type of message that's encrypted but not from an Apple device; Apple keeps their status symbology and users on both ends get E2E encrypted messages to and from Apple device users without Apple users switching to a third-party app.

Apple's never had to confront this because nobody's had this much success smashing the walled garden on iMessage before. If Beeper is persistent and good enough, they'll have the first foot in the door of such an outcome.

Worst case is Apple keeps escalating the fight knowing that Beeper can't outlast them. Everybody loses in this situation; Beeper and Apple both burn a bunch of money with no benefit to anyone, iMessage users see people popping into and out of chats because Apple keeps blocking them, and most non-Apple users continue sending unencrypted SMS messages because Apple users won't switch off iMessage.

Of all the moats Apple has, iMessage's "blue bubble" is by far the most arbitrary. Allowing strictly controlled interop with non-Apple devices doesn't change how good iMessage is, it only dents the ecosystem's most superficial status symbol.

I'm rooting for the better outcome but expecting the latter.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#90

Post by garysahota93 »

ibeckermayer wrote: post #74
garysahota93 wrote: post #35

Feedback for the Beeper team if they are reading: there is a non-zero amount of us that own Apple devices (like MacBooks or iPads) and not iPhones. For those it applies to, what if you leveraged the legitimate devices we do own as the spoofed devices used by Beeper Mini to register? Don't know if that would solve the Phone Number registration part, but thought I'd throw this out there

That’s how standard Beeper does it, or at least used to do it: https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/21/pebble-founder-launches-be...

Beeper cloud used the device as a relay mechanism. I'm suggesting the same on-Android-device implementation, but rather than randomly generating an apple device to send to Apple's registration servers, they use a device I legitimately own.

No relays (so preserves security) & harder for apple to identify (because to them it'd be as if I'm just using my iPad)

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