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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

#541

Post by rekoil »

dylan604 wrote: post #211
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My bigger question is how are any Beeper Mini users getting through (aka how is Beeper Mini's backend getting around the fact that... I thought you needed a valid serial # to an Apple device specific to you to log in + use iMessage)

at some point Serial Box will have a list of valid/invalid hardware serial numbers. or, someone will crack the code to generate valid codes. oh wait. i drifted off back to the 90s software cracking days.

Apple doesn't have predictable serial numbers anymore, they're all just random numbers corresponding to rows in a database. There's no way to generate them.

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

#542

Post by delta_p_delta_x »

cunidev wrote: post #539

It seems like the effort Apple is putting in stopping this is an indicator of how many people buy iPhones just for being in their iMessage circles. Which is only possible as long as Apple keeps snubbing RCS and making messaging painful to non-iPhone users. If, say, a random cheap Motorola with Beeper could keep them in the same groups as before, Apple would probably lose a (small) chunks of its clients.

> how many people buy iPhones just for being in their iMessage circles

This is news only in the US. Literally everywhere else in the world (where iPhones don't have a supermajority market share), third-party apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, Line, WeChat, Facebook Messenger, etc have been used for the past decade, with no problems whatsoever. My own WhatsApp account has been active for a decade, with chats going back exactly that far.

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

#543

Post by Zak »

Twisell wrote: post #485
vintermann wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's nice of you, but by all accounts from the US (where iphone is dominant): Yes, it's a problem. The visual marking and decreased integration/service towards users of non-iphones is pretty obviously part of why Apple has such a big phone market share in the US - if not, they wouldn't fight tooth and nail to keep those anti-features. There's plenty of examples of Apple being quite open and friendly to integration…

Well in Europe Android is dominating the market (but with a very fragmented experience depending on Android version). The result is that as an iPhone users I feel sometimes feel left out because different friends circles on Android turn to different secured messaging services (WhatsApp, FB messenger, Telegram, Signal, etc...). I firmly refuse to give my personal ID to all theses companies just to keep in touch so I o…

> as an iPhone users I feel sometimes feel left out because... I firmly refuse to give my personal ID to all theses companies just to keep in touch

You're not left out because of what kind of phone you use. You're left out because you refuse to use messaging apps that are available for your phone.

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

#544

Post by dwighttk »

cunidev wrote: post #539

It seems like the effort Apple is putting in stopping this is an indicator of how many people buy iPhones just for being in their iMessage circles. Which is only possible as long as Apple keeps snubbing RCS and making messaging painful to non-iPhone users. If, say, a random cheap Motorola with Beeper could keep them in the same groups as before, Apple would probably lose a (small) chunks of its clients.

Or it is an indicator of Apple wanting to keep it secure

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

#545

Post by ds »

Technically speaking, Beeper can keep working for a long time. That is, Until apple starts checking if the client is on a official apple device. This may or may not be feasible for Apple to implement, mostly depending on if they even have the resources/method to know if every device is legitimate or not (they may not- especially for older devices)

If they do have a way to enforce 'authentic' devices, the only step after that for beeper to take will be to ask users to purchase the cheapest iphone that still works for imessage and to extract its serial/key/whatever to import into the android client.

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

#546

Post by delfinom »

unsigner wrote: post #479

These comments mention spam a lot as a reason to stick with iMessage. What kind of spam are people (presumably in the US) getting outside of iMessage? I’m in the EU, I get very little SMS spam (mostly for telecom’s clumsy attempts to find more ways to monetize me). I also have Viber, Telegram, and FB messenger, and the spam is virtually zero on Viber (less than an “offer” a month, and it’s from the likes of Coca Cola…

On Android, I get dozens of spam political texts a day.

Luckily Google has added anti spam features to Google Messenger for years now and it filters out 99.999% of them. Once in a blue moon, a txt will slip by and i have to mark it as spam.

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

#547

Post by curt15 »

whyoh wrote: post #513
Twisell wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well in Europe Android is dominating the market (but with a very fragmented experience depending on Android version). The result is that as an iPhone users I feel sometimes feel left out because different friends circles on Android turn to different secured messaging services (WhatsApp, FB messenger, Telegram, Signal, etc...). I firmly refuse to give my personal ID to all theses companies just to keep in touch so I o…

>Apple kept conformance with SMS/MMS standards from the beginning and added a secure layer on top. iMessage is not a "secure layer on top", it's a totally separate proprietary protocol and it requires an Apple account to work. It just happens to run in the same app as SMS/MMS messages, which has its pros and cons.

This. A "secure layer on top" would be something more like HTTPS over HTTP.

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

#548

Post by msh »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #542
cunidev wrote: post #539

It seems like the effort Apple is putting in stopping this is an indicator of how many people buy iPhones just for being in their iMessage circles. Which is only possible as long as Apple keeps snubbing RCS and making messaging painful to non-iPhone users. If, say, a random cheap Motorola with Beeper could keep them in the same groups as before, Apple would probably lose a (small) chunks of its clients.

> how many people buy iPhones just for being in their iMessage circles This is news only in the US. Literally everywhere else in the world (where iPhones don't have a supermajority market share), third-party apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, Line, WeChat, Facebook Messenger, etc have been used for the past decade, with no problems whatsoever. My own WhatsApp account has been active for a decade , with chats going back ex…

I think saying its US only is oversimplifying, its at least also true in some european markets.

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

#549

Post by msh »

rezonant wrote: post #447
JoblessWonder wrote: post #122

As I mentioned in the previous discussion[1], users are going to have to put up with the system going down... and I just don't see that happening. From the article: "It was losing messages during the outage and never being entirely certain they had been sent or received. There was a gathering on Saturday, and she had to double-check with a couple people about the details after showing up inadvertently early at the wr…

Interestingly, if you break your iPhone on vacation and buy a phone that is not an iPhone so that you can still be contacted until you get home to your favorite Apple Store, you are also losing messages, assuming you forget to go through Apple's iMessage deregistration system. Really the design of iMessage is the problem.

Only if you have another iOS/macOS device receiving them at home.

If you don't receive iMessages it will automatically fall back to SMS (unless the sender specifically turned that feature off).

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

#550

Post by msh »

kelnos wrote: post #521
thethimble wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Doesn’t iMessage fall back to sms if the receiver doesn’t ack? At least that’s what the UX feels like.

I think that's if iMessage can't reach Apple's servers. Otherwise that wouldn't make sense; simply being without a cell/wifi signal, or having your phone off, for a few hours, would mean anyone messaging you would be sending a bunch of SMS fallback messages.

It is how it works, after a certain timeout where it can't be delivered to a device it will fallback to SMS. The exact length of the timeout is not public.

See https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8063349?sortBy=best

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