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Beeper Mini is back

blog.beeper.com

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Re: Beeper Mini is back

#511

Post by standardUser »

knowald wrote: post #106

It might be a controversial topic, but this post had some oddly rapid upvotes for HN. I'm trying to understand what the target of this hacky iMessage spin-off of Beeper is. The whole idea of subscription-based monetization. Rather no way of Apple not patching quickly, dealing with this as soon as it raises attention. But maybe that was the intent of a hack they found? A clever marketing strategy, to gain some rapid t…

Gatekeeping iMessage has become one of the most despised facets of Apple's many gatekeeping techniques, primarily because of widespread bullying.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#512

Post by abhinavk »

resters wrote: post #353
endisneigh wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As noted in the comment, Google products are once again available on Amazon. They were removed for several years not long ago. Ads are subjective? Apple has many criteria for rejecting app store submissions, why not add "misleading push message content not labeled as advertising"

An app can send anything via APNS. Apple cannot know at the time of submission. As Android has it, they could introduce something like Notification Channels in the next iOS which you can then turn off individually but they haven't yet.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#513

Post by milkytron »

danaris wrote: post #282
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…

Based on my understanding, Beeper is using false or duplicate Apple device credentials in order to authenticate with Apple as "being a legitimate iMessage endpoint". There's no need to take the—rather draconian—step of locking out all Apple users who are using Apple IDs through the browser; all Apple needs to do is ban the false device IDs and possibly close the loophole that allows Beeper to create them. Any time yo…

I don't think they're using false or duplicate Apple devices for this. I think that it may be likely they are using AWS resources for it: https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/mac/

When AWS first came out with these, this was my first thought. People could spin up an EC2 instance and use it for iMessage, and Beeper came to be shortly after this feature went live in AWS.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#514

Post by dkjaudyeqooe »

ethanbond wrote: post #316
dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When did Bepper accept their TOS?

Either they're authorized to use the service and (almost certainly) signed a TOS, or they're not, in which case they're using the service unauthorized. Not a lawyer but I don't see what else could be true here. I suppose you could say the end users are the ones violating the TOS? I don't think it'll land with any judge, "your honor we just did the reverse engineering (without signing a TOS) and sold it to our users (…

I'm not a lawyer either but I don't see what's wrong with that argument. The tool that Beeper built isn't infringing any laws, reverse engineering in this context is perfectly legal. They're not responsible for their users' use of the tools they build and their consequent violation of the TOS.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#515

Post by wvenable »

SparkyMcUnicorn wrote: post #403
LordKeren wrote: post #26

I think one of the underlying issues is that many are now going to be hesitant to even bother with Beeper Mini anymore. I don’t think there is going to be a high tolerance for this game of cat and mouse from the end user perspective I also don’t think goading apple is going to do much here either. Regardless of the current feelings around apple’s walled garden, they are not going to suddenly keel over and give up on…

Right now Beeper Mini only works without registering your phone number, and I'd be ok if that's all I ever got. In fact, I hope they make number registration optional if they do get that working again. I still have my Macbook if/when Beeper is cut off again.

It definitely might be better at the moment without registering your number as then you won't have messages disappear into nothingness if the service goes down again.

I missed a few messages when I switched from iPhone to Android because I hadn't deregistered my number from Apple.

I don't think I'd use my existing Apple ID for this -- probably easy enough to create a new one with a new email.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#516

Post by error503 »

Longhanks wrote: post #231
wvenable wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Worst case is Apple keeps escalating the fight knowing that Beeper can't outlast them. I feel like this is in Apple's DNA. Perhaps Beeper is lucky that Apple needs to support a lot of legacy devices and they might not be able to fully plug this hole without creating a big support nightmare.

Please explain to me why that wouldn't be in anyone's interest? Why should I pay costs for server uptime and maintenance for clients that I a) did not authorize and b) did not pay for me keeping up my servers and c) actually accept that a third party is getting money for providing said access to my servers? I really don't get how Apple is to blame for protecting what they pay for.

> Why should I pay costs for server uptime and maintenance for clients that I a) did not authorize and b) did not pay for me keeping up my servers and c) actually accept that a third party is getting money for providing said access to my servers?

Because you designed the system in such a way that interoperability was impossible without non-customers using your servers?

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#517

Post by ElijahLynn »

js2 wrote: post #471

> Messages will be sent and received via your email address rather than phone number. [...] Even worse, when iPhone customers added an Android phone number to an existing iMessage secure encrypted group chat, the Messages app would by default switch the entire group chat to using unencrypted, unsecure SMS. These two Messages features combine to create a terrible UX. When someone starts a group chat in Messages and in…

Sounds like a great UX to me!!!

/sarcasm

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#518

Post by MuffinFlavored »

As far as I understand, in order to talk to Apple iMessage services/backend (and all auth pieces) you need a "legit" Apple ID and legit Apple hardware model #s / serial #s

If you don't have that, how are they able to get auth tokens / send messages around without basically "exploiting a hidden hack that might get patched"?

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#519

Post by GeekyBear »

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…

While they are at it, can they file an antitrust action against Google for making changes that break ad blockers and third party clients for YouTube?

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#520

Post by tmiku »

snakeyjake wrote: post #374
tapoxi wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not sure why you're so confident in that 0.0% assertion. iMessage is integrated with the default/ubiquitous messaging app on iPhones, and I think it's reasonable to assume that teenagers are messaging mainly other teenagers who are likely to have iPhones (and thus using iMessage).

What do you think is beating out iMessage here apart from SMS? Snapchat, WhatsApp, various social net DMs? The biggest non-iMessage usage numbers I can imagine still don't exceed what I'd expect from iMessage, just based on its ubiquity in that demographic.

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