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Beeper Mini is back

blog.beeper.com

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Re: Beeper Mini is back

#341

Post by Workaccount2 »

matsemann wrote: post #46
martinky24 wrote: post #13

These Beeper folk sound a bit entitled. As was repeatedly mentioned in the other thread [1], building production applications on top of an undocumented and unsupported (in terms of backwards compatability, etc) API is a nightmare that should be avoided. Apple has every right to change their API, if they do Beeper will go down, and Beeper will blame Apple. I understand Apple's incentives to not want to be in this situ…

When did HN get so anti-consumer, anti- hacker , anti-freedom, pro-proprietary? Them taking the fight with Apple should be applauded. A walled down proprietary message platform only a few can use is stupid to fight in favor of.

People tasted the fruit in Apple's garden noticed that it tasted really good. So good in fact that it made them go "Is this walled garden actually that much of a bad thing? Because man, I do love eating this fruit."

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#342

Post by JeremyNT »

rpmisms wrote: post #10
res0nat0r wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're either going to keep getting their access cut, or sued into bankruptcy. You can't really piggyback off another companies service in violation of their TOS without things working out poorly for you IMO.

Yeah, not the point. The point is to prove that it's possible and relatively simple, and the only reason Apple operates this way is to lock people into the ecosystem.

> Yeah, not the point. The point is to prove that it's possible and relatively simple, and the only reason Apple operates this way is to lock people into the ecosystem.

Is that the point? Everybody already knew that Apple's messaging strategy was a business calculation based around lock in.

Beeper also presents itself as a company, so I'm not sure how releasing software that annoys Apple just to make a point could possibly help their bottom line. If that was the goal, they should've released the code as an anonymous open source project rather than painting a huge target on their own backs.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#343

Post by modeless »

mike_d wrote: post #330

> If Apple insists, we would consider adding a pager emoji to metadata on all messages sent via Beeper Mini. This would make it easy for Messages App to filter out any messages from Beeper Mini users. As an iPhone user I would love for them to do this so I can not communicate with these users. The green/blue bubble gives me an indication of the encryption being used, and presenting a blue bubble while the messages ar…

Beeper Mini does not MITM messages. E2EE is maintained throughout. More so than iMessage actually, which sends all your encryption keys to Apple in the most common configuration (iCloud backup). Where's your concern about that?

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#344

Post by microtonal »

ankit219 wrote: post #222
qrohlf wrote: post #29

I’m curious what their best-case outcome is here. It’s fully transparent at this point that Apple has no appetite for a third party iMessage client on any platform and will take whatever technical steps needed to prevent this from happening. I’d wager heavily that even if Beeper plays cat-and-mouse to the point where they’ve exhausted Apple’s budget for blocking them and somehow managed to avoid Apple’s legal team pu…

I think they ignored a rarely talked about but important aspect. iMessage is free for Apple users because it comes bundled with all Apple products. The cost to run iMessage and deliver millions of messages daily must be a significant number. With beeper, they are enabling the functionality for android. That is every android user signed up with beeper will end up costing Apple some money to send messages to iphone (or…

This aspect is ignored, because it's clear that Apple blocks third-party clients to maintain its dominant position in the US (social unacceptability of green bubbles among teens).

If cost was the problem, they could offer a subscription.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#345

Post by xyzzy_plugh »

> The underlying connection method is open source, for anyone to review.

SSPL sure isn't open source and I'm certainly not reviewing this. At best it's source available. I'm all for separating the meaning of the term from OSI's opinions but this usage misses the mark.

I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, etc.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#346

Post by rany_ »

fragmede wrote: post #327
rany_ wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple’s next move would likely be to release some kind of official iMessage Android client rather than cede control of the space to Beeper. You say this as if it's a bad thing, I think that would be mission accomplished for Beeper... tbf, though I suppose their moment would be over by then.

Define "over". Opera the web browser earned $80 million on $380 of revenue and I don't know anybody that uses it. If Apple releases an Android iMessage client, but Beeper still has enough paying MAU so they can pay their employees and investors, is anything "over" just because there's competition? It isn't a winner-take-all like a game of football or something.

By over, I just mean that their days in the spotlight/media would be gone and people would generally be less aware of their existence. Not that they won't be able to compete against Apple.

If anything judging by Apple's Android apps recently, especially with my personal experience with their Apple Music app I would say they have a really bad track record thus far. It's a really buggy and almost unusable mess.

This is unrelated but I was actually duped by Apple Music, I intially thought that the audio quality was noticably better but as it turns out it was actually just louder. Raising the volume made YouTube Music sound just as good.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#347

Post by arilotter »

mike_d wrote: post #330

> If Apple insists, we would consider adding a pager emoji to metadata on all messages sent via Beeper Mini. This would make it easy for Messages App to filter out any messages from Beeper Mini users. As an iPhone user I would love for them to do this so I can not communicate with these users. The green/blue bubble gives me an indication of the encryption being used, and presenting a blue bubble while the messages ar…

Beeper Mini does not MITM messages - it's a reverse engineering of how iMessage works, and runs entirely on-device, without putting messages thru Beeper's servers. It talks directly to Apple and pretends to be an iPhone.

You're thinking of Beeper Cloud, which does iMessage thru a Mac Mini in the cloud.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#348

Post by Justsignedup »

tapoxi wrote: post #338
snakeyjake wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this an actionable anti-trust issue? iMessage doesn't even register as a messaging platform in the minds of most users globally. In the US is it dwarfed by at least three other platforms. Globally, do any of the other top ten (Apple is nowhere near the top ten) messaging apps allow third parties to spoof their service? The purpose of anti-trust is to increase competition and prevent unlawful monopolies. Apple…

Aren't 70% of American teenagers on iPhone because of the iMessage network effects? The whole "green bubble" shaming issue.

its more than a shame. emoji, gifs and images are a core part of teens' communications (I have one, I know all too well), and iMessage's green bubble is also a guarantee that these things won't work, so its not just a shame, it is a hard road block.

Fortunately a lot of teens moved to discord.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#349

Post by averageRoyalty »

hamandcheese wrote: post #211
jkubicek wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 0% confident in a surprise acquisition by Apple. Beeper doesn't seem to offer anything that Apple couldn't do themselves.

With that logic you would expect Apple to never make acquisitions. They've got the money in the bank to do just about anything.

Can you show an example of an aquisition they've made to explicitly stop an external company using their APIs?

I've not heard of one, it doesn't appear to be in their playbook.

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