Live data from Hacker News

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

arstechnica.com

101–110 of 665 posts

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

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

FYI "TW" is outdated language and shouldn't be used any more. The phrase can elicit stress about what's to follow, and the t-word is associated with violent imagery.

Imagery is problematic, it is an aggression to put a picture into another person’s head without informed consent

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

#102

This seems to be Beeper's insincere attempt at dressing up their grievances to appear as if they were in advantage of the [Apple's] customer. Apple has made it clear that they won't bring iMessage to Android. People who choose to invest in Android phones know they won't get access to iMessage. It seems a bit entitled behaviour for someone to feel like Apple should be forced to bring iMessage to Android for any reason…

It's not entitled, it's pushing back against a gigantic company exploiting network effects to create user lock-in, because that's easier than competing on the merit of your products.

Speaking for myself, I think iMessage is a good product, and it's one of the (many) reasons I use Apple devices as daily drivers.

You make it sound like people only use iMessage because of the network effect/lock-in, and clearly aren't considering that perhaps said network effect exists at least in part because iMessage is just...good.

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

#103

This seems to be Beeper's insincere attempt at dressing up their grievances to appear as if they were in advantage of the [Apple's] customer. Apple has made it clear that they won't bring iMessage to Android. People who choose to invest in Android phones know they won't get access to iMessage. It seems a bit entitled behaviour for someone to feel like Apple should be forced to bring iMessage to Android for any reason…

Out of curiosity why does this matter? Do iPhone users not use WhatsApp or Messenger? Is this a USA specific thing? As a UK Android user I've never used iMessage and don't see any reason why I'd need or want to.

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

#104
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't you have said "compartmentalized", or "dominated by hostile silos" or anything else that doesn't involve comparison of the state of online chatting with wars that have killed humans? I agree things were nice with adium.

[flagged]

Wth are you talking about? My comment had nothing to do with trigger warning or any kind of sensitiveness, which you seem quite eager to hit on. I guess i'm not used to this kind of americanization of the debate and i must've said something very wrong to say without realizing. Point is the phrase is completely excessive in this context, we're talking about exchanging text messages. Yes aim and gtalk was funny but there is some romanticizing about "the old web".

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

#105
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC that is the original goal of beeper, to act as a universal messenger front end

So the end result will be dozens of 'universal' 'standards'?

I think in the end, whoever chooses to block these apps(Trillian, Pidgin, etc) too hard will be the ones left in the dust.

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

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI "TW" is outdated language and shouldn't be used any more. The phrase can elicit stress about what's to follow, and the t-word is associated with violent imagery.

Imagery is problematic, it is an aggression to put a picture into another person’s head without informed consent

[deleted]

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

#107
post #42

I miss the days when chat wasn't fragmented across apps and platforms or could at least be unified in apps like Adium. Having to have a different app installed for myriad different contacts is, at best, irritating.

Pidgin supports a good number of chat clients :) They lost the battle for a while there when walled gardens went up, but then won later on and regained support.

https://www.pidgin.im/plugins/?publisher=all&query=&type=

No iMessage, of course, but you might find it helpful to see the list of supported clients.

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

#108
post #6

MSN Messenger played a similar cat-and-mouse game with AOL Instant Messenger long time ago. Unlike MSN Messenger which used this publicity to grow their own market share, I am not sure what's the end game for Beeper.

attention? this has brought beeper _tremendous_ publicity. i think it’s naive to think that beeper didn’t expect this—its win-win for them no matter what.

they could and so they did.

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

#109

The fundamental issue is that there are no readily-available iPhone emulators that can send iMessages, and this is a good thing that people pay for. The benefit of the Apple walled garden is that the spammers are kept out, because they can't get fifty SIM cards, plug them in to a "SIM box"[1], and start sending hundreds of thousands of scam messages via iMessage. This is easy in an uncontrolled, open-source ecosystem…

Isn't there? You can use iMessage via the Messages app on a Mac and tools like BlueBubbles already have hooks to send and receive iMessages using the official client.

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

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how I view it as well, this is a security issue. Beeper is gaining unauthorized access to a service and Apple doesn't like it. The fact that they are not technically breaking anything is kind of like going into a business after hours because the door wasn't locked. You still aren't authorized to be there.

The better analogy is using a fake ID to get the locksmith to give you a copy of the house key. The house is Apple’s servers The fake ID is spoofed device serials and UUIDs The copy of the house key is the authentication blob Nobody would blink twice if a prosecutor threw the book at someone like that. Still, somehow, I’m sure many here would complain if the DOJ would prosecute Beeper for violating the CFAA by commit…

Pretty sure they're buying actual Mac minis and using those device IDs. If you have evidence to the contrary I would be very interested in seeing it.
Post reply on HN