I've been on the wait-list for at least a year I think? "Open beta test" plus a wait-list is quite weird.
If you get an invite from someone, it jumps you to the front of the line.
So viral marketing.
New Beeper Android app – Open beta test
31–40 of 93 posts
Re: New Beeper Android app – Open beta test
#32now if only I had a small android phone I could install this app on...
That's the dream...
Re: New Beeper Android app – Open beta test
#33I want to try it, but I don't want to become dependent on it if it will transition to a paid product in the future (It's cool, but I probably wouldn't pay for it). How long will it remain free to use?
That's a reasonable concern, but in practice the likelihood of the product being killed by malicious counterinteroperability games by Apple (and the other proprietary backents too) is far higher than the chance you'll be screwed by the manufacturer.
Beeper isn't in a business that's every going to make them significant money. Their core value proposition is, ironically, that reverse engineering iMessage is "just hard enough". If it becomes too hard, they fail.
But if it becomes too easy, they fail too because everyone will launch Apple-compatible chat apps! In fact the worst case is that the protocols end up standardized, in which case they'll have to compete with genuine open source implementations.
Basically, I'm absolutely in their corner in this fight, but I'd never bet on Beeper as a product.
Re: New Beeper Android app – Open beta test
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
I use Beeper on Android to have one app through which I send messages on WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram etc. I never cared for iMessage support.
This works?
Does for me, although I do self-host their stack. It's been surprisingly stable, given what's actually happening behind the scenes.
Re: New Beeper Android app – Open beta test
#35I want to use Beeper, but funneling all my communications through hosted bridges (especially so Signal) is gonna be a nope, until they release more very deep technical and verifiable information about how on-device bridges work. I'm big on unified messaging from the libpurple days, but now 99% of my chats are in Signal so perhaps I am just not the target demographic for this.
On-device bridging works like this https://blog.beeper.com/p/how-beeper-mini-works. We'll put together a full technical deep dive for the real launch, this is just an open beta. Our signal bridge code is open source: https://github.com/mautrix/signal
You don't have to use our hosted bridges, we've made it ridiculously easy to self host: https://github.com/beeper/bridge-manager
Re: New Beeper Android app – Open beta test
#36Interesting! Anyone here remember Pidgin? It was such a fantastic app for chatting with friends on AIM, MSN, ICQ, gchat (XMPP), and IRC all from one interface. It even had an "off the record" (OTR) plugin that was an early example of end-to-end encryption. It was a good illustration of how an open source app could surpass all the proprietary alternatives because it wasn't subject to the same incentives as a commercia…
I still use pidgin daily for Slack. I've even written a libpurple custom protocol for our own homegrown app.
Re: New Beeper Android app – Open beta test
#37The app tells me I need Google messages to handle SMS.
But I don't want to depend on Google on my phone.
Re: New Beeper Android app – Open beta test
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hoping Eric pops in here like he does on other Beeper threads and sees this. I'm still checking every day for a small android phone. I found my Xperia z3 Compact in a drawer the other day. It was immediately such a pleasure to hold, I love the concept of having something as powerful as a smartphone in such a small package.
There are 3” Android “media player” devices for under $100 on Amazon. No cellular but cool to play with.
Re: New Beeper Android app – Open beta test
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
I use Beeper on Android to have one app through which I send messages on WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram etc. I never cared for iMessage support.
This works?
It works great for me. No support for complex things: calls, message requests, and probably a few more. But most days I don't need to open any other app, and when someone asks me which network they can contact I honestly just don't care anymore. They all look exactly the same on my phone.
Re: New Beeper Android app – Open beta test
#40I want to use Beeper, but funneling all my communications through hosted bridges (especially so Signal) is gonna be a nope, until they release more very deep technical and verifiable information about how on-device bridges work. I'm big on unified messaging from the libpurple days, but now 99% of my chats are in Signal so perhaps I am just not the target demographic for this.
On-device bridging works like this https://blog.beeper.com/p/how-beeper-mini-works . We'll put together a full technical deep dive for the real launch, this is just an open beta. Our signal bridge code is open source: https://github.com/mautrix/signal You don't have to use our hosted bridges, we've made it ridiculously easy to self host: https://github.com/beeper/bridge-manager
I really hope it will be possible to configure the Beeper app to use self-hosted bridges vs using a separate Matrix client.
Having the features and polish of the first party app, but with a user-controlled backend (like how Bitwarden does it) would be great.
BTW, I have a Pebble on my wrist right now :)