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Beeper Mini is back

blog.beeper.com

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Re: Beeper Mini is back

#241

Post by kulahan »

jay-barronville wrote: post #228

I’m a former Android fanatic turned iPhone user. I still own Android devices, but my primary device is an iPhone. I haven’t had something excite me as much as this Beeper Mini situation in years—I love that they’re doing this. One of the things that got me to switch to the iPhone a few years ago was the fact that it seemed Apple was actually doing a lot of the right things when it came to privacy and security. Obviou…

>They're on the wrong side of history.

Say that to their market cap. Seems a lot of people appreciate what comes with that drawback. Revealed preferences can be a sonuvabitch.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#242

Post by freedomben »

dexwiz wrote: post #206
lacker wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best case outcome is to get publicity leading to US and EU antitrust regulators to file a lawsuit against Apple, both of which Apple loses. The conclusion of this lawsuit is that not only must Apple allow access to iMessage, they also must allow changing the default for every component of iOS - messaging app, browser, app store, let you replace Siri with other voice assistants - and to lower the 30% app store fee…

Apple is THE consumer tech company in the USA. Its their darling. The only way the USA will rule against Apple is that if they are losing them money elsewhere.

Not to mention that virtually the entire ruling class in the USA has iphones and are largely tech illiterate so incapable of understanding nuance. Add some big lobbying money from Big Gray and Apple seems pretty safe

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#243

Post by blitz_skull »

ankit219 wrote: post #222
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…

I think they ignored a rarely talked about but important aspect. iMessage is free for Apple users because it comes bundled with all Apple products. The cost to run iMessage and deliver millions of messages daily must be a significant number. With beeper, they are enabling the functionality for android. That is every android user signed up with beeper will end up costing Apple some money to send messages to iphone (or…

It’s actually really surprising to me (from a technical perspective) that this wasn’t already the case. Based on what I’ve read they’re basically spoofing the fact that they’re an iDevice which seems like it should be much more difficult than Beeper has made it look.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#244

Post by mmanfrin »

lacker wrote: post #148
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…

The best case outcome is to get publicity leading to US and EU antitrust regulators to file a lawsuit against Apple, both of which Apple loses. The conclusion of this lawsuit is that not only must Apple allow access to iMessage, they also must allow changing the default for every component of iOS - messaging app, browser, app store, let you replace Siri with other voice assistants - and to lower the 30% app store fee…

Ironically, if Google were ever allowed to replace siri on iPhones, I would probably never buy an android again.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#245

Post by madeofpalk »

Nextgrid wrote: post #173
madeofpalk wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's anti-competitive with what Apple does with iMessage? iMessage's lack of popularity everywhere else in the world is proof that competition is able to flourish. Apple is under no obligation to make an Android app, and it's silly to pretend not making an app for another platform is somehow anti-competetive. The market simply chosing a preference is not anti-competive. iPhone and iMessage is able to compete on it'…

If I have a computer that's technically capable to interoperate and talk with someone else's computer, why should we intentionally restrict that ability? The answer isn't to say that in other locations we have a different gatekeeper so all is well, the answer should be that Apple's gatekeeping should be broken, and then other gatekeepers' gatekeeping should be broken too. We should all have one messaging client that…

There's plenty of cross-platform messaging apps available. There's a plethora of ways those two computers an interoperate, all the way down to the lowest-common denominator of SMS (and soon to be, RCS, which Apple took their time on). They all work great. Many of them dominate as a third party options on both iPhone and Android across the world.

> why should we intentionally restrict that ability

I don't believe software and hardware companies should be under obligation to support things they don't want to. Users can decide on whether the products meet their needs and decide whether they work for them or not.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#246

Post by endisneigh »

resters wrote: post #147

Apple/Google/Microsoft/Amazon do a lot of extremely petty things that should disgust us and give us a glimpse at how this pettiness and adversarial conduct might escalate in a GAI world: - Amazon does not carry Google branded products. ([edit] they do now once again, whew!) - Search in GMail is nearly completely broken when you have too many messages, yet Google (ostensibly a search company) can't deliver good email…

How can this be taken seriously when basic facts are wrong. Go on Amazon and check for Google products.

Apple has no way of telling you what an advertisement or promotion is, and it’s inherently subjective.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#247

Post by Scarbutt »

jwells89 wrote: post #221
lacker wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best case outcome is to get publicity leading to US and EU antitrust regulators to file a lawsuit against Apple, both of which Apple loses. The conclusion of this lawsuit is that not only must Apple allow access to iMessage, they also must allow changing the default for every component of iOS - messaging app, browser, app store, let you replace Siri with other voice assistants - and to lower the 30% app store fee…

I would hope that this “best case outcome” also comes with regulations to keep other giants (mostly Google) from marketing and cross-promoting their way into dominance on iOS, creating monopolies in the process. For instance, Google apps shouldn’t be able to drive Chrome installs by presenting a sheet offering to download Chrome every time I tap a link in them, as they do currently.

This happens to me constantly when I use google search in ios safari.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#248

Post by Longhanks »

solardev wrote: post #57
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... )

In the event Apple loses in Europe, I wonder what would happen. Would they really open up iMessage worldwide? Just in Europe? Shut it down there altogether since WhatsApp is already so popular there anyway, and their US market is bigger? And what does this do for Beeper, anyway? If they open it up, wouldn't Google and Samsung just integrate it into their first party messaging clients? It seems as precarious a positio…

Whatever legislation they face, they will implement it in the most hostile way towards non-Apple services/users/companies.

See how they implement off-App Store payments in the Netherlands and/or South Korea.

Apple is not giving up on iMessage. And, given the legislation becomes to cumbersome to deal with, they will withdraw from countries - they threatened to withdraw iMessage from the UK already.

The EU is already becoming a second-class market for technology companies (see Meta's Threads, and many more will follow).

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#249

Post by UmYeahNo »

lopkeny12ko wrote: post #220

Beeper has caught a ton of media attention in recent weeks but I truly do not understand it. The SMS protocol has been around for decades and works perfectly fine with iPhones. If you want rich media and other bells and whistles, use WhatsApp. How often does someone whine so loudly about insisting on using the closed, Apple-proprietary protocol that their friends need to pay a monthly subscription for a third party i…

I tell you what, if you're a young person you can be publicly shamed for having the wrong color bubble, or outcast by being excluded from a group chat. To you and I that probably doesn't make sense, but for a big portion of the young, phone using population being unable to participate in the iMessage ecosystem is a huge deal socially. You are essentially excluded from the friend group, you're excluded from conversations, and it carries over into real life because you've been excluded and that carries an impact -- you're an outcast. It doesn't have to be rational to be true.

Being excluded from a group chat has a huge social impact for younger people.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#250

Post by Nextgrid »

ketzo wrote: post #20
rpmisms wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, not the point. The point is to prove that it's possible and relatively simple, and the only reason Apple operates this way is to lock people into the ecosystem.

> and the only reason Apple operates this way is to lock people into the ecosystem. Honest question: is there anyone who doesn't already think that? Even at, like, a legislative level?

Apple is pushing the whole security/privacy narrative and yet people are guzzling it even here, so I'd argue yes.
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