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Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

arstechnica.com

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Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

#21

Post by unshavedyak »

nocoiner wrote: post #4

Beeper CEO, from the article: "If there's enough pressure on Apple, they will have to quit messing with us." "Us," he clarified, meant both Apple's customers using iMessage and Android users trying to chat securely with iPhone friends. "That's who they're penalizing," he wrote. "It's not a Beeper vs. Apple fight, it's Apple versus customers." Not really sure how this is anti-customer. Apple customers have ample acces…

> Apple customers have ample access to iMessage, after all. And as has been noted many, many times, there are many means of accessing secure cross-platform messaging.

In fairness, i am a 5+ device apple customer and i can't use it on my two primary desktops. I use Beeper to write texts on my primary computer.

Apple feels anti-me. I pay for products and unless i'm 100% into the ecosystem they fight me. Sure, they don't owe me an app on every platform i like - but they're also fighting me developing my own, too.

Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

#22

Post by JumpCrisscross »

gmm1990 wrote: post #12
nocoiner wrote: post #4

Beeper CEO, from the article: "If there's enough pressure on Apple, they will have to quit messing with us." "Us," he clarified, meant both Apple's customers using iMessage and Android users trying to chat securely with iPhone friends. "That's who they're penalizing," he wrote. "It's not a Beeper vs. Apple fight, it's Apple versus customers." Not really sure how this is anti-customer. Apple customers have ample acces…

Any chat I'm in that has at least one Android user is annoying. I'd prefer if the imessage features would be possible for those chats too.

> Any chat I'm in that has at least one Android user is annoying

Is this still the case since they stopped sending the "gmm1990 hearted XYZ" messages, and instead integrated the tapbacks? I really don't see a difference unless I'm in the air (and so cannot connect to the cellular network).

Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

#24

Post by nerdjon »

thot_experiment wrote: post #15

Is it common for people to use texts in 2023 in your social circle? I think I've been texted once this year. I mean obviously people care about this to some extent otherwise this app wouldn't exist but in my experience when I meet someone they'll give me insta or discord, unless they're a tryhard and then it's always signal (blegh). EDIT: not sure i'm being downvoted? i'm genuinely curious because i never use SMS or…

Honestly it drives me insane when I keep messages out of just texting.

I have a couple friends that just want to use Discord and not everything is together in the same app on all of my devices (iMessage,including just texting is on all of my apple devices).

I remember desperately trying to fix this with… what was that big multi client app for Mac years ago? Hate chats not being in the same app.

Edit: found it. Adium! Which shockingly has been updated in 2021.

Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

#25

Post by luhn »

thot_experiment wrote: post #15

Is it common for people to use texts in 2023 in your social circle? I think I've been texted once this year. I mean obviously people care about this to some extent otherwise this app wouldn't exist but in my experience when I meet someone they'll give me insta or discord, unless they're a tryhard and then it's always signal (blegh). EDIT: not sure i'm being downvoted? i'm genuinely curious because i never use SMS or…

Very much so, texting is my primary method of remote communication. Discord, WhatsApp, and FB messenger are for various group chats. Instagram is almost exclusively for sending dog memes to my wife.

Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

#26

Post by [deleted] »

thot_experiment wrote: post #15

Is it common for people to use texts in 2023 in your social circle? I think I've been texted once this year. I mean obviously people care about this to some extent otherwise this app wouldn't exist but in my experience when I meet someone they'll give me insta or discord, unless they're a tryhard and then it's always signal (blegh). EDIT: not sure i'm being downvoted? i'm genuinely curious because i never use SMS or…

[deleted]

Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

#27

Post by lazzlazzlazz »

thot_experiment wrote: post #15

Is it common for people to use texts in 2023 in your social circle? I think I've been texted once this year. I mean obviously people care about this to some extent otherwise this app wouldn't exist but in my experience when I meet someone they'll give me insta or discord, unless they're a tryhard and then it's always signal (blegh). EDIT: not sure i'm being downvoted? i'm genuinely curious because i never use SMS or…

Almost everyone I know uses Signal regularly, then iMessage after that. Discord comes up in certain settings. Instagram sounds like a pretty awful place to remain connected with someone.

Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

#28

Post by NettleBurr »

>Apple on Wednesday appeared to have blocked what Beeper described as "~5% of Beeper Mini users" from accessing iMessages

>Apple previously issued a (somewhat uncommon) statement about Beeper's iMessage access, stating that it "took steps to protect our users by blocking techniques that exploit fake credentials in order to gain access to iMessage." Citing privacy, security, and spam concerns, Apple stated it would "continue to make updates in the future" to protect users. Migicovsky previously denied to Ars that Beeper used "fake credentials" or in any way made iMessages less secure.

Not commenting about the ethics of all this, just wondering why technically Apple can only block ~5% of Beeper Mini users instead of all of them? Could this potentially be tied to the use of an email id as the iMessage handle?

Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

#29

Post by lazzlazzlazz »

aesh2Xa1 wrote: post #11
nocoiner wrote: post #4

Beeper CEO, from the article: "If there's enough pressure on Apple, they will have to quit messing with us." "Us," he clarified, meant both Apple's customers using iMessage and Android users trying to chat securely with iPhone friends. "That's who they're penalizing," he wrote. "It's not a Beeper vs. Apple fight, it's Apple versus customers." Not really sure how this is anti-customer. Apple customers have ample acces…

Apple has customers who want to use iMessage. Those customers are not able to use iMessage to securely communicate with Android users. That's pretty clear. If Apple's customers want to be able to use iMessage for such communications then (1) the Android user buys an Apple product, (2) a third party makes a cross-platform iMessage client, or (3) Apple open iMessage to other platforms. Apple is blocking on (2) and (3).

> Those customers are not able to use iMessage to securely communicate with Android users.

Well, they can't now as a result of blocking Beeper. But they could — using Beeper.

It's one thing to argue that you won't open the platform because it's additional work to support that. But that argument degrades when they're willing to do the work to shut out unexpected uses of the platform.

If they want to ensure safety, they should do the extra work of making it possible to interoperate with iMessage safely. But safety isn't the priority and everyone knows it.

Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

#30

Post by thot_experiment »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #18
thot_experiment wrote: post #15

Is it common for people to use texts in 2023 in your social circle? I think I've been texted once this year. I mean obviously people care about this to some extent otherwise this app wouldn't exist but in my experience when I meet someone they'll give me insta or discord, unless they're a tryhard and then it's always signal (blegh). EDIT: not sure i'm being downvoted? i'm genuinely curious because i never use SMS or…

You‘ve just given multiple different text messengers that you use to text message when asking if people still text. Yes, people do. Non technically minded are very big users for the default text messaging apps.

text message means SMS in my dialect, sorry
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