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Beeper Mini is back

blog.beeper.com

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671–680 of 1001 posts

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#671

Post by ribosometronome »

ehvatum wrote: post #648
GeekyBear wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why does everybody feel entitled to use it if they're not using Apple products? I hereby demand that Google stop making changes to YouTube that prevent ad blockers from working. Or more to the point, I should have the right to sell hacked access to Microsoft's Office 365 servers to end users and Microsoft must not take any action that interferes in those user's access. That's reasonable, right?

I hereby demand that Apple stop supporting email interoperability with non iCloud users. The current situation, where the iCloud email users enjoy first class communication with gmail users, is tantamount to theft. That’s reasonable, of course.

That does not seem like it follow from the person you are replying to's examples. Pretty much nothing is about removing functionality?

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#672

Post by rezonant »

goodluckchuck wrote: post #652
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.

I think you misunderstand that quote. Prior versions of Beeper Cloud hosted Mac Minis in data centers and used genuine Apple hardware and software to automate iMessage in order to function.

This quote simply says that Beeper Cloud is using the same direct implementation of iMessage that Beeper Mini does. It does not indicate that Beeper Cloud & Mini do not communicate with Apple's servers (they do).

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#673

Post by grishka »

nine_k wrote: post #596
grishka wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why does everybody feel entitled to use it if they're not using Apple products? Network effects.

This would be "enticed", not "entitled". What a user is entitled for is listed in the ToS; who did not accept them, is not entitled. Not necessarily forbidden or blocked, but any bets and guarantees are off.

If many people around you are participating in something but you're left out because of your phone OS choice, you do still feel entitled to participate in that by whatever means necessary. It's about the social aspects more than anything else. See other comments here for people apparently getting shamed and left out of group chats for having wrong color bubbles.

Remember Clubhouse, and how it was iOS-only when it was actually popular for a month? I felt entitled to build an unofficial Android app for it because so many people were on there doing interesting things, and so many other people were complaining loudly about it being iOS-only.

FOMO is a powerful force.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#674

Post by lxgr »

pinewurst wrote: post #308
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…

"exhausted Apple's budget for stopping them" Is this "THX1138"? Is this the Manhattan Project? It's Apple management asking a messaging lead to spend a few minutes figuring out how Beeper is masquerading and submitting a fix.

Beeper seems to be masquerading as an Intel Mac. These don’t have any hardware attestation, and many of them aren’t receiving software updates anymore either.

This might be extremely hard for Apple to fix.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#675

Post by darknavi »

jb1991 wrote: post #657
whycome wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can also press and hold the send button to swap over to SMS.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#676

Post by sbuk »

Miner49er wrote: post #500
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…

What dwarfs iMessage in the US? I would assume that it is the most used messaging platform in the country.

Facebook Messenger - approx 140 million users, then WhatsApp at approx 75 million. iOS has approx 136 million users (not sure if that includes iPad). So "dwarfs" might be a bit extreme. However, its extremely unlikely that all the iOS users use iMessage and none use either Facebook or WhatsApp. Statista has the figures, but I'm not going to pay $149 per month to find out more!

Source: Googling around, so take it for what it is!

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#677

Post by k8svet »

gorjusborg wrote: post #630
babl-yc wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selfishly I'm most excited about this project as a demonstration that secure and reliable communication across platforms is pretty straightforward. The only blocker is that Apple doesn't want it to exist. If Apple were truly acting in their users best interest, they would want their users to have encrypted and fast communication with all devices, through an open protocol or otherwise. And yes, iOS allows 3rd party ap…

> The only blocker is that Apple doesn't want it to exist. This is my main source of excitement around this project. The existence of this project shows that there is no technical reason it can't exist. So, what is the reason it doesn't exist? Exactly what you said: Apple thinks it is in its best interest not to.

That couldn't possibly have ever been in doubt, though.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#678

Post by toss1 »

rezonant wrote: post #662
segasaturn wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Yes! All I hear when entitlement comes up is "Why do you feel entitled to text message your iPhone friends if you don't use an iPhone?"

because there IS an open SMS standard, and Apple has hijacked all their phones to use iMessage in it's closed ecosystem, saying to the rest of the world: "Go Fork Yourselves".

So, right back at ya, Apple. If you cannot make it by distinguishing your products on their MERITS vs the amount of lock-in you can generate, I feel no reason to help protect your brand, or access to it

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#679

Post by raydev »

fatnoah wrote: post #573
ksherlock wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently, blue bubble envy is a thing people have. The beeper home page mentions blue bubbles 9 times (and not being a green bubble twice). WSJ reported in August that 87% of teens have an iPhone so anybody with an android or a green bubble therefore stands out and is a loser. https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/why-teens-hate-androi...

My son had an Android phone. I don't think anyone considered him to be a loser, but he did get very sick of everyone why he had a green bubble.

I'm shocked your son and his friends were using iMessage, even in the US. My teens are using Snapchat/IG/TikTok mostly for messaging.

iMessage or SMS is exclusively how they communicate with their parents.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#680

Post by raydev »

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…

Why are you entitled to use Apple's messaging servers without paying for access?
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