Relying on the assumption of an “authorized client” is fundamentally not a reliable security or anti-spam mechanism, as this Beeper saga demonstrates. A curious 16 year old casually figured out how to make a client be “authorized”, and a motivated party just demonstrated basic interference from Apple can’t stop it from continuing to practice guerrilla interoperability. Apple might be able to sue Beeper out of existen…
Beeper Mini is back
481–490 of 1001 posts
Re: Beeper Mini is back
#482Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But… shouldn’t mostly everyone here view needing the EU to force the behaviour of a US company kind of against the entire supposed benefit of the US system and the purpose of the domain this forum is hosted on? European here. From my POV it seems as if the USA have forgotten that for a truly free market to exist, there needs to be serious oversight to prevent capitalism from devolving into "corporate Darwinism" - a…
Where are you coming up with these theories? A capitalist economy needs the government for some very key laws like upholding private property rights but how does that extend to "mandating interoperable message systems"?
If the government wants to maintain a free market, that means they need to step in and prevent monopolies, which includes preventing anti-competitive behavior.
Apple is being very anti-competitive with iMessage. It's not just the blocking of Android clients, but the fact that Apple will not let you use any other SMS app on iPhone, so users are locked into iMessage.
Re: Beeper Mini is back
#483I’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…
Re: Beeper Mini is back
#484Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In the US is it dwarfed by at least three other platforms Maybe because it comes preinstalled?
I am very curious what three other messaging application are available on iOS and have more market share than Apple Messages! Nearly every member of my family has an iPhone and they all use Apple Messages.
maybe Discord, FB Messenger
Re: Beeper Mini is back
#485Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 acquai…
> this is a problem and there are people that would like a solution
The solution is literally downloading a free app and encouraging others to do the same.
> this is still an annoying problem to me because much of my family and some of my friends use android
Then why don't you start using Whatsapp with them? It's not like in Europe we were born with it, at some point someone told us "you are on Whatsapp, right? I'll message you there" and we downloaded the damn thing. Is it an internet connection issue? (In the sense that you need to always be able to fallback seamlessly to SMSes because the connection is spotty?)
Re: Beeper Mini is back
#486These numbers seem very low. I would have expected numbers in the millions.
Re: Beeper Mini is back
#487Apple is writing their own death sentence here. Beeper Mini's case will definitely be used against them when their anti-monopoly case inevitably comes about: 1. Forcing a monopoly when they force-migrated their users to iMessage 2. Maintaining said monopoly by keeping third parties out Best thing they could do is put third party clients into a MFI like program and loads of red tape.
Re: Beeper Mini is back
#488> If Apple insists, we would consider adding a pager emoji to metadata on all messages sent via Beeper Mini. This would make it easy for Messages App to filter out any messages from Beeper Mini users. Why would they not just shut it down if Apple asks, wouldn't that just do the same thing (beeper users can't send messages)
Re: Beeper Mini is back
#489Earlier 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…
this might be the “best outcome” for some nerds or android users, but it certainly isnt the best outcome for most consumers. iOS has resisted a lot of the crap and cruft of windows and android because of its opinionated nature. sure, siri could use improvement, but at least iPhones never fail to call 911.
Re: Beeper Mini is back
#490Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aren't 70% of American teenagers on iPhone because of the iMessage network effects? The whole "green bubble" shaming issue.
from Piper Sandler's 2023 Fall survey of US teens ( https://www.pipersandler.com/teens ): "87% of teens own an iPhone; 88% expect an iPhone to be their next phone; 34% own an Apple Watch" No idea how many bought them specifically for iMessage...