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Beeper Mini is back

blog.beeper.com

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Re: Beeper Mini is back

#371

Post by ewoodrich »

gruez wrote: post #237
ankit219 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm sure most android users would be happy if iMessage-on-Android was included as part of the $0.99/month icloud subscription.

Yep, I already pay for iCloud, Applecare on several devices and yet I am still punished by Apple via iMessage for using Android as my main device. (I also own a newish iPhone but even that's not good enough without workarounds to use my primary phone number with iMessage).

I don't like the idea of ever being bound to a single ecosystem and Apple's lack of interoperability by design keeps me using many Google services because they offer almost everything for both iOS and Android.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#372

Post by riedel »

Got myself a apple ID for fun but cannot sign in, as SMS second factor fails in Beeper Mini. Wonder if they found another way again to detect the 'fraud'.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#373

Post by standardUser »

microtonal wrote: post #344
ankit219 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This aspect is ignored, because it's clear that Apple blocks third-party clients to maintain its dominant position in the US (social unacceptability of green bubbles among teens). If cost was the problem, they could offer a subscription.

Exactly, iMessage is not a product they want to sell or spread around, it is a marketing tool that loses it's potency once it's not exclusive.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#374

Post by snakeyjake »

tapoxi wrote: post #338
snakeyjake wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this an actionable anti-trust issue? iMessage doesn't even register as a messaging platform in the minds of most users globally. In the US is it dwarfed by at least three other platforms. Globally, do any of the other top ten (Apple is nowhere near the top ten) messaging apps allow third parties to spoof their service? The purpose of anti-trust is to increase competition and prevent unlawful monopolies. Apple…

Aren't 70% of American teenagers on iPhone because of the iMessage network effects? The whole "green bubble" shaming issue.

>The whole "green bubble" shaming issue.

Even if that's a real thing and not an imaginary or minor phenomenon hyped up for clicks, it is hardly anti-trust-worthy.

70% of American teenagers may have access to iMessage due to it being on their phones but there is a 0.0% chance that, in aggregate, iMessage is in their top five most-used messaging apps.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#375

Post by ongy »

bentt wrote: post #273

The whole green bubble thing with Android SMS on iPhone is a problem, but the solution is to get everyone to use a different chat app. Apple will never give this up. Google could be leading that charge and providing a world beating chat app that works across all phones and all desktop devices. They have every reason to provide the best chat app in the world and yank iPhone users over to it. Instead they have given up…

[dead]

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#376

Post by joshmanders »

kulahan wrote: post #241
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.

Yep, this is an unpopular HN opinion, but I actually like Apple's walled garden. It's safe, it's friendly and I don't have to worry.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#377

Post by jtriangle »

solardev wrote: post #81
fooey wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Let's not turn mountains into molehills here, Twitter isn't really closed, it's just authwalled. So, burner email is all you need to read all the tweets, errr, X's?, that you want.

Also, far simpler to take care of beeper, just make all the message bubbles the same color. They'd lose their entire userbase if that happened.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#378

Post by _gabe_ »

throw310822 wrote: post #259
_gabe_ wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s false based on what? Your own anecdotal experience? I have a friend group that has iPhones and Androids. We went on vacation and had to jump through so many hoops just to share our pictures. We don’t care what devices everybody uses, because why the heck should that matter? The fact that it can be simple to share high fidelity pictures and videos, but it isn’t just because Apple wants their walled garden benefit…

Curious. In Europe, I never know if my friends are using Android or iPhone. My gf has iPhone and we never had any issue sharing pictures and videos- we both use Whatsapp (never heard of iMessage outside of this absurd "green bubble" thing that happens in the US) and Google Photos.

Nobody I know in the US uses WhatsApp. This has been repeated ad nauseam in other comments. I don’t know why this is, but in the US people tend to use the default message apps on their phones to text each other.

The only other app that I’ve seen used in several places is GroupMe, but that’s typically reserved for large groups (more than 10 people or so) that may include people you’re not friends with, but more acquaintances. So it’s been used for school classes, community groups, and things like that.

Me and my friends don’t care about green vs blue bubbles or any of that garbage. We just want to be able to communicate over the paid cellular plan that we already have. What happens in Europe has no bearing on this. All I pointed out by my comment above is that this is a problem and there are people that would like a solution.

And, not that this matters, I’m writing this on my iPhone. But, this is still an annoying problem to me because much of my family and some of my friends use android. Apple degrades my experience with family and friends for no technical reason. The only reason they do this, presumably, is to retain a large market share and promote some stupid “exclusivity” ideal that appeals to some people.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#379

Post by ankit219 »

microtonal wrote: post #344
ankit219 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This aspect is ignored, because it's clear that Apple blocks third-party clients to maintain its dominant position in the US (social unacceptability of green bubbles among teens). If cost was the problem, they could offer a subscription.

It's pretty clear why they don't want an android iMessage app.

In this case, what beeper enables (if successful) potentially is to use Apple's infra for future communication between android to android phones, or android to iMessage groups, while on Apple's infra and dime. Beeper will likely collect a fee for it as well. Thats not a position Apple would want to be in.

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