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Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access

techcrunch.com

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Re: Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access

#991

I feel like this could be a part of a weird plan to trap Apple into an antitrust lawsuit about iMessage. Beeper's CEO has been claiming that the existence of Beeper Mini actually improves iPhone users' experiences. He could argue that Apple shutting off access is not meant to improve Apple users' experiences, but rather, to keep people off of Android. Honestly, I have mixed feelings. I REALLY think that iMessage need…

The EU is not saving the day in America this time around.

iMessage will reportedly dodge EU regulations, won’t have to open up https://arstechnica.com/apple/2023/12/imessage-will-reported...

Re: Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access

#992
post #835

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow aye, admittedly I've had no reason to go to their main site recently (and in hindsight should have before responding). They really went all in on marketing this eh There's always a possibility of me being wrong! It does look like a bit of a pivot doesn't it.. Good point, well made. I think I'll go double check I can still log in to my chat apps directly just in case haha

I mean, even if they go all in with Beeper Mini, they plan on adding all the services supported in Beeper Cloud in it. Even without iMessages, a fully local application like this would be a great product. The fact that it relied on their servers put me off of using Beeper cloud

If that's where they're going with it that's awesome, I've not been able to find that plan but I've also not looked that hard. Sweet

Re: Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access

#993
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exposure is something. The fact the developer had the chops to do this is now on the public record. That could be very valuable for getting a job or a college scholarship (since they’re in HS).

What do the Beeper investors get out of the kid having better job prospects? I don't think anyone is questioning that the whole situation has been great for the kid, the question is what the Beeper execs were thinking.

Who cares about the investors? Why is this an important question? Corporations and investors aren't the only people in the world with an ability to reap their rewards.

Re: Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access

#994
post #337
post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy is a fine youtuber but i think he was talking about stuff outside of his area of competence wrt to this specific matter.

Usually the correct course of action is to just... say nothing then ? Or at least take some caution. But hey, it makes for a less sensationalist headline. The thing is that trustworthiness is typically something you look for in a reviewer, clearly not something that can be found there.

> Usually the correct course of action is to just... say nothing then ?

literally yes, that is the correct course of action.

the issue is that you cannot publish videos and make money if you refrain from talking about stuff you don't really understand.

which is one of the problems with modern society, in general.

Re: Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access

#996
post #970

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I doubt many people would pay for one. Enough people paid for one. Enough to make Apple scared and use engineer time to ban/block people anyway.

Do we know that and that it wasn’t e.g. a massive influx of messages coming from a single hardware ID triggering an anti-spam system.

Since we're not Apple, we don't know. But if we take their word [0] for it.

> We took steps to protect our users by blocking techniques that exploit fake credentials in order to gain access to iMessage.

> We will continue to make updates in the future to protect our users.

[0]: https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/08/apple-cuts-off-beeper-mini...

Re: Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access

#997

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand, why don't you force them to use Whatsapp (or Signal, or whatever) to contact you? Get an app that rejects by default SMSes coming from certain numbers. They want to text you at all? They need to use Whatsapp, otherwise they can go fuck themselves. (It worked for me when a friend wanted to force me to contact him on Telegram rather than Whatsapp- I resisted for weeks but at the end I gave in). Once…

Is this a legitimate question? No one is going to download an app and use it to message one guy.

Yes, it's a legitimate question. If you wanted to keep up with a friend from Japan, would you not install LINE to talk to them (or them installing Whatsapp or Discord, or whatever you are using)?

And it's not like there' some gigantic combinatorial explosion of apps you have to install. The vast majority of messaging around the world is about 5 apps. Facebook's Messager, Wechat, Instagram, Whatsapp, Discord. Between these, you'll reach the vast majority of the world's population somehow. And then you'll need one or two more locally-used ones like LINE or KakaoTalk depending who you're talking to.

Re: Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access

#998

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do the Beeper investors get out of the kid having better job prospects? I don't think anyone is questioning that the whole situation has been great for the kid, the question is what the Beeper execs were thinking.

Who cares about the investors? Why is this an important question? Corporations and investors aren't the only people in the world with an ability to reap their rewards.

Beeper should care about their investors, since they are using their money. I think they raised something like 15m.

Re: Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access

#999

One thing which is really confusing is why are Android users obsessed with iMessage? Android users can send text messages to iPhones, the can call iPhone users, and they can use third party messaging apps to communicate with iPhone users. It really isn’t clear to me why so many people are so angry they cannot use iMessage on Android.

I think they don't like being spit on and excluded by iphone users. Iphone users don't like when there are android users in group chats. The reason the iphone users don't like it is because Apple specifically and artificially makes the experience annoying and shitty in several different ways, for the iphone users not just for the Android users.

I think the main thing with all the cringeworthy talk about green bubbles is about android being perceived as less glamorous - on average android users have less money, and/or are ideologically motivated - like some linux users.

In a word, android would be considered just as uncool even if they had access to imessage.

Re: Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access

#1000

This was the obvious outcome. People were being willfully blind about how this "hack" works. Using an exfiltrated binary they used its blackbox functions to perform a sort of device attestation using ripped Apple device identifiers. Clearly Apple simply needs to blacklist any device attestation that this service uses, which is obviously trivial. These aren't just RNGs they're fabricating, they're sets of legitimate A…

Why was everyone here acting like Apple suddenly found a way to kill of Beeper? They released a temporary patch that only temporarily stopped Beeper. It's not going to be this easy, especially when people are being paid to reverse engineer iMessage.

It's only a matter of time until that "black box" gets manually deobfuscated. Apple should waste less time on this and instead focus on algorithms that detect and stop spammers.

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