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Beeper Mini is back

blog.beeper.com

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Re: Beeper Mini is back

#651

Post by enragedcacti »

vlozko wrote: post #606
waynesonfire wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's Apple's private message delivery system! In the US, where democratic principles govern and capitalism drives the economy, the regulation of corporations emerges as a necessary practice. This approach rests on the understanding that while corporations are essential for economic growth, they must operate within a framework that prioritizes the public's interest. In a democracy, every entity, including corporatio…

This is a wonderful speech full of noble platitudes. None of this actually answers the question of why Apple (or really anyone) should let anyone have free and open access to something they paid and keep paying a lot to create, deploy, maintain, and iterate on. It’s their stuff, not the public’s. Nobody should expect corporations to be charities.

We force companies to incur costs for the public's benefit all the time. In special cases we even require them to serve loss generating customers as a condition of operation. No one is forced to operate a power company, but if you do you are bound to provide power to customers regardless of their individual profitability. Similarly, dominant vertically-integrated messaging systems could be required to provide interoperability at a reasonable charge (or even no charge!). Apple could then decide whether or not they want to operate a system under those terms.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#652

Post by goodluckchuck »

kevinsync wrote: post #528

Maybe this came up in the earlier threads (announcement, outage) so I apologize if it's been discussed ... This project is fantastic. The hacker spirit is in full force, and I love a good David and Goliath story. However, all the comments about demanding interoperability and protocols keep confusing me -- I don't consider APNS a protocol (like TCP anyways), it's also not incidental, extra header space to stuff data i…

> It's Apple's private message delivery system!

It's not!

> Note: Beeper Cloud’s new Oct 2023 iMessage bridge never used Mac relay servers and still does not today. It uses a similar method to Beeper Mini, but runs on a cloud server.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#653

Post by marvy »

whycome wrote: post #638
kevinsync wrote: post #528

Maybe this came up in the earlier threads (announcement, outage) so I apologize if it's been discussed ... This project is fantastic. The hacker spirit is in full force, and I love a good David and Goliath story. However, all the comments about demanding interoperability and protocols keep confusing me -- I don't consider APNS a protocol (like TCP anyways), it's also not incidental, extra header space to stuff data i…

Apple hijacked SMS. You can't CHOOSE to send SMS. If your phone is tied to a computer for a shared imessage account, if you're outside with your phone alone (while computer is online) the phone cannot receive text messages. (The sender ios device presumes 'success' in sending the message because it is received by the computer. It does not have the ability to send just sms). So, i'm all for anything that shakes up mes…

you can choose; there's an option buried in settings somewhere

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#654

Post by haswell »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #617
haswell wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But why is it Apple's responsibility to accept a non-legit/unknown serial #? I don’t think anyone is arguing that it’s Apple’s responsibility to accept fake serial numbers. The serial number is an implementation detail and not the core issue, which is Apple’s intentional degradation of the non-iMessage experience, and their stance against interoperability. If this was all about security, they could accept something…

> I don’t think anyone is arguing that it’s Apple’s responsibility to accept fake serial numbers. Can we confirm if that's what is happening here or not? How else is Beeper Mini able to work given Apple's requirement "iMessage auth + read/write requires valid_serial_number"?

The “How Beeper Mini Works” post from a few days ago doesn’t mention the serial number, so I don’t know.

But whether this is happening or not is immaterial to the broader philosophical issues being raised.

For sake of argument, let’s say they’re faking a serial number to make the app work. How does that change the impact of Apple’s anti-interoperability stance?

Again, if the real issue is security, nothing stops Apple from providing a secure alternative. And again, this takes us back to: this isn’t about security.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#655

Post by bogantech »

segasaturn wrote: post #607
kevinsync wrote: post #528

Maybe this came up in the earlier threads (announcement, outage) so I apologize if it's been discussed ... This project is fantastic. The hacker spirit is in full force, and I love a good David and Goliath story. However, all the comments about demanding interoperability and protocols keep confusing me -- I don't consider APNS a protocol (like TCP anyways), it's also not incidental, extra header space to stuff data i…

>Why does everybody feel entitled to use it if they're not using Apple products? Because I want to talk to my friends without being locked into Apple's ecosystem. Simple as that, I don't need any other reason. This language about "entitlement" feels like when Google complains about people using adblockers on YT - I don't care because they're both $2T corporations, and the only "entitlement" I see is the way Apple and…

> Because I want to talk to my friends without being locked into Apple's ecosystem. Simple as that, I don't need any other reason.

You can't do that now with SMS and a plethora of other messaging apps?

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#656

Post by jmkni »

whycome wrote: post #638
kevinsync wrote: post #528

Maybe this came up in the earlier threads (announcement, outage) so I apologize if it's been discussed ... This project is fantastic. The hacker spirit is in full force, and I love a good David and Goliath story. However, all the comments about demanding interoperability and protocols keep confusing me -- I don't consider APNS a protocol (like TCP anyways), it's also not incidental, extra header space to stuff data i…

Apple hijacked SMS. You can't CHOOSE to send SMS. If your phone is tied to a computer for a shared imessage account, if you're outside with your phone alone (while computer is online) the phone cannot receive text messages. (The sender ios device presumes 'success' in sending the message because it is received by the computer. It does not have the ability to send just sms). So, i'm all for anything that shakes up mes…

I mean you can literally just set the iMessage toggle to 'Off' on your phone

It's not even buried. Settings -> Messages -> iMessage == Off

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#657

Post by jb1991 »

whycome wrote: post #638
kevinsync wrote: post #528

Maybe this came up in the earlier threads (announcement, outage) so I apologize if it's been discussed ... This project is fantastic. The hacker spirit is in full force, and I love a good David and Goliath story. However, all the comments about demanding interoperability and protocols keep confusing me -- I don't consider APNS a protocol (like TCP anyways), it's also not incidental, extra header space to stuff data i…

Apple hijacked SMS. You can't CHOOSE to send SMS. If your phone is tied to a computer for a shared imessage account, if you're outside with your phone alone (while computer is online) the phone cannot receive text messages. (The sender ios device presumes 'success' in sending the message because it is received by the computer. It does not have the ability to send just sms). So, i'm all for anything that shakes up mes…

> You can't CHOOSE to send SMS

You can turn off iMessage and force sms unless you are referring to something else.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#658

Post by lxgr »

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.

Number registration is and always was optional on Beeper Mini!

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#659

Post by paulddraper »

kevinsync wrote: post #528

Maybe this came up in the earlier threads (announcement, outage) so I apologize if it's been discussed ... This project is fantastic. The hacker spirit is in full force, and I love a good David and Goliath story. However, all the comments about demanding interoperability and protocols keep confusing me -- I don't consider APNS a protocol (like TCP anyways), it's also not incidental, extra header space to stuff data i…

It's the same as XMPP/etc vs proprietary chat protocols.

"Slack chat is only for Slack customers."

"Google chat is only for Google customers."

And so on.

Well....if you say it is, then it is.

But the supporters of interoperability would like to...interoperate. So non-Apply customers can send messages to Apple customers and vice versa.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#660

Post by lotsofpulp »

whycome wrote: post #638
kevinsync wrote: post #528

Maybe this came up in the earlier threads (announcement, outage) so I apologize if it's been discussed ... This project is fantastic. The hacker spirit is in full force, and I love a good David and Goliath story. However, all the comments about demanding interoperability and protocols keep confusing me -- I don't consider APNS a protocol (like TCP anyways), it's also not incidental, extra header space to stuff data i…

Apple hijacked SMS. You can't CHOOSE to send SMS. If your phone is tied to a computer for a shared imessage account, if you're outside with your phone alone (while computer is online) the phone cannot receive text messages. (The sender ios device presumes 'success' in sending the message because it is received by the computer. It does not have the ability to send just sms). So, i'm all for anything that shakes up mes…

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201349
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