It continues to be weird that anyone treats this as a technical battle when I'm sure Beeper will get a cease and desist at anytime.
Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead
271–280 of 665 posts
Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead
#272Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why are y’all so intent on using iMessage? I (honestly) don’t understand the serious passion behind forcing Apple to open it to everyone. SMS still gets through, and other apps still work. It seems weird to focus so much on this and not on just using something that fits your use case, but maybe I’m missing something.
It's because SMS is unencrypted, and this is an effort to have secure communication between iOS users and Android users (since iMessage is Apple-device-only). There's also a status factor, where Android users are lowly "green bubbles" in iMessage, which signals decreased security and questionable support for the interactions available to iMessage users. Of course everyone can switch to Signal and this is a moot point…
> Of course everyone can switch to Signal and this is a moot point, but millions of Apple users use iMessage and aren't likely to switch.
Doesn’t this mean that most people simply don’t care?
Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead
#273[flagged]
We don't know if iMessage leads any markets or not. It might lead the US market.
Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead
#274When Ma Bell didn't let people use third-party phones with their service, the government made them change their ways. Why is the government letting Apple get away with the equivalent?
[deleted]
Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead
#275I 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.
[deleted]
Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why are y’all so intent on using iMessage? I (honestly) don’t understand the serious passion behind forcing Apple to open it to everyone. SMS still gets through, and other apps still work. It seems weird to focus so much on this and not on just using something that fits your use case, but maybe I’m missing something.
This has been discussed ad nauseam. In the US, not being a "blue bubble" can have a very high social cost and get you excluded from groups and communication opportunities. People just want to be able to communicate without ridiculous walled garden vendors throwing stupid road blocks in their way and making things artificially harder to get you to "buy your mom an iphone."
The fact that some people are snobs doesn’t justify the government dictating software specifications to Apple.
Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems like a chess move. Apple blocks a small percentage of users instead of all of them, which casts uncertainty on using Beeper Mini at all. It also allows them to A/B test various methods of blocking or honeypotting Beeper Mini logins without giving away any big secrets. From Beeper's perspective, they now have to figure out why only those logins were blocked and if they need to patch something or not. Apple could…
Ugh, it is beyond depressing to imagine Apple bigwigs sitting around discussing ways to make absolutely certain teens keep getting ostracized until they buy their overpriced product.
Given the majority of their users don't care about that, it seems unlikely to be an accurate portrayal of the internal discussions.
Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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? Apple could block 100% of the people using Beeper and throw Hackintosh users into that as a bonus as well. The reason they’re not doing that is because it could have unintended consequences a…
> Apple could also push out an update tomorrow that would end this once and for all by utilizing device attestation and leveraging Secure Enclave More proof that Remote Attestation is evil and does not exist to serve the user.
[deleted]
Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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? Apple could block 100% of the people using Beeper and throw Hackintosh users into that as a bonus as well. The reason they’re not doing that is because it could have unintended consequences a…
> Apple could also push out an update tomorrow that would end this once and for all by utilizing device attestation and leveraging Secure Enclave More proof that Remote Attestation is evil and does not exist to serve the user.
As a user, I am very well served by remote attestation when it is used to stop cheaters in videogames or spammers in messaging platforms.
Re: Apple partly halts Beeper's iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Though you'll have to enlighten me what exactly it is they are stealing from Apple since Apple doesn't charge money for iMessage for there to be any theft or loss of revenue for them. Unless your definition of theft is "YOU WOULDN'T DOWNLOAD A CAR?!" Apple doesn't charge money for iMessage in much the same way Microsoft doesn't charge money for MS Paint. iMessage is included as part of an Apple hardware purchase. R…
>Apple's device sales subsidize the cost Apple pays to run this system. And Beeper bought and paid for the Apple devices which they use to route iMessage. What's the problem? Looks fair and square to me. Apple is legally allowed to try to block me for breaking their ToS, but legally, I bought the device, I can do whatever I want with it since it's my property now, including trying to route iMessage on my device and m…
> And Beeper bought and paid for the Apple devices which they use to route iMessage. What's the problem? Looks fair and square to me.
I'm assuming you're confused here and not intentionally misleading. Beeper Cloud (formerly just Beeper) uses Apple devices to route iMessages. This is legit and as far as I know hasn't been blocked or stopped in any way.
Beeper Mini (the Android app in discussion) doesn't use this system and is instead exploiting a loophole left to allow older Apple devices to use the platform.
Stealing is also not only a legal term, but can be used in a purely ethical context too. I don't think anybody's arguing that Beeper or their users are breaking the law.