Beeper reverse-engineered iMessage to bring blue bubble texts to Android users::The push to bring iMessage to Android users today adds a new contender. A startup called Beeper, which had been working on a multi-platform messaging
We literally shut down another app doing this last week because it was so sketchy
The other app was running iMessage on Macs owned by the company and relaying the messages insecurely to its Android app. What we see here is a third-party implementation of the iMessage protocol running on Android devices directly, an example of adversarial interoperability.
It’s not just about the color of the bubbles. I have Wi-Fi at work but poor cell signal. Because I have an iPhone and my husband has an android, we have to use another chat client to text while I’m at work. No cell signal means no texting android phones for me, because I can only text people with iMessage over Wi-Fi.
Plus, remember: kids have phones. They do get bullied over chat bubble colors, just like I got bullied for wearing clothes from Walmart in school. It doesn’t have to be this way, it’s Apple’s fault for making iMessage a walled garden.
Is it even a garden though? I don’t see any benefit in using it over something like Signal other than it coming pre-installed on your phone.
You know honestly, now that I’ve typed that I’m not sure. I don’t do a lot of texting audio snippets or other stuff other people do, so maybe, maybe not.
The problem is, I should be able to text people at default without worrying I have cell signal or if group chats are going to work correctly, instead of needing to ask people what 3rd party chat service they prefer.
needing to ask people what 3rd party chat service they prefer
Yeah Signal’s great and all, but my spouse’s family refuses to use anything but WhatsApp, half my family uses FB Messenger while the other half use Discord (and they are feuding about it), the older folks in my hobby group refuse to learn anything but the default text on their phone (that group chat is an unmanageable NIGHTMARE), and anything from work uses teams…except the US folks who use slack, and now my friends want to get me on Signal, too? Relevant XKCD.
The solution to my problem is not yet another messaging app. I just want ONE inbox!
I’ve been pretty happy with Beeper so far. There are some features that aren’t quite as good as using each app natively, yet, but I think they’re off to a great start considering the sheer scale and variety of interfaces they’re working with. It even gives me tools to deal with the hobby chat anarchy, and now I can send default SMS messages from my computer!
Sure, but they wont. The insidious thing about iMessenger is that it isnt iChat. It is the apple default text messaging app. Which is good because it means that all your messages are in one place, and you dont have to try to convince your older family member to install a 3rd party chat app. You just have a chat app. This tricks users not into thinking that texting is just better on apple.
But its bad because it only works between other apple products and users. This is objectively Apple’s shortcoming, however there are enough iPhones in the wild and enough people in the US who defaulted to just hitting the sms/mms icon instead of downloading a chat app that the odd man out might be the android user. And it’s not just about the green bubble being green. If you invite an a green bubble to a group text then all your rich chat messenger features go away and it turns into an MMS thread. Which is objectively bad.
But yes they could just download and use whatsapp,line, telegram, signal, facebook messenger(and in the early days things like aim/yim/msn) But they dont. The fact is their default messenger app works, and it works well with most people they talk to so the problem is the green text.
It’s especially silly when you consider the “there’s an app for that” generation of user and so many things are apps but they refuse to engage on other chat channels. People download different apps to get dates, the navigate, to browse websites that shouldnt even be apps, to order food, order groceries, order taxi’s, but a chat app just to talk with you? ehhhhhhhhh.
i had no idea that having green chat bubbles upset people so much.
In the US, every millenial is a communist until a green bubble shows up in the group chat… then the poverty jokes commence
This is a good video explaining things, for anyone who doesn’t know about the situation Apple created.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=BuaKzm7Kq9Q
Alternative 🔗:
https://yewtu.be/watch?v=BuaKzm7Kq9Q
https://piped.video/watch?v=BuaKzm7Kq9Q
It’s all the other features in iMessage that android users “ruin” in group chats. Things like read receipts, typing indicators, reactions, animated/spoiler text messages, sending media in full quality, etc… A single android user is enough to downgrade an entire group chat, so apple users tend to be a little bit resentful.
It’d be a little bit like if one person on a Discord server disabled all the fun parts of Discord, and it killed the functionality for everyone on that server. Now nobody in the server can add fun little reactions to messages, or start threads, or send embedded gifs. All because that one person decided they didn’t like it.
The issue isn’t so much the message color. It’s the ability to send videos that aren’t potato quality and other media.
oh, can’t android users receive high-quality videos and photos? after 16 years of smartphones, you’d think they’d have that figured out…
Android to Android, sure.
But Apple and Google refuse to play nicely with each other, so Android to Iphone or Iphone to Android both suck.
It’s not a lack of capability, it’s the refusal to implement it to try and force users to pick a side.
It’s not the android side that’s failing, it’s Apples refusal to implement anything other than SMS for cross ecosystem compatibility.
iOS can’t send hi quality videos or images over SMS. It’s a choice made by Apple.
I can send large videos (more than 50mb, for sure) over SMS from my Android phone on Verizon to a Verizon iPhone. They receive it in same quality. When they send it back, the iPhone butchers it.
Verizon, unlike other carriers, doesn’t seem to have an MMS size limit.
Android uses RCS now, a higher quality and more feature rich standard than SMS. However… Apple hasn’t added it to iOS, so it doesn’t work to send to iPhones and they receive bog-standard SMS from Android devices.
iOS can’t send hi quality videos or images over SMS. It’s a choice made by Apple.
I can send large videos (more than 50mb, for sure) over SMS from my Android phone on Verizon to a Verizon iPhone. They receive it in same quality. When they send it back, the iPhone butchers it.
Verizon, unlike other carriers, doesn’t seem to have an MMS size limit.
You need to think of iMessage as Google messages, Whatsapp, telegram, signal, etc. Except this is only installed on iPhones and they want everyone to know it. It’s arrogant and stupid. The app could just be released for Android and it would be no different than the others I mentioned.
It’s gatekeeping.
I think they’re hated because they’re synonymous with broken group chats and low res photos. Hopefully EU forcing rss adoption fixes these instead of having to download an app to ‘fit in’.
why should the EU have anything to do with who “fits in”? maybe i misunderstood what you’re saying here…
EU implements legislation forcing Android + Apple to use standards that actually work properly with each other. (they usually spearhead this type of change)
People using android no longer break group chats or have terrible sent image/video quality when messaging Iphone users.
With this ammunition gone, teens stop using it to attack each other for their familys (lack of) income. Ie those kids ‘fit in’ better.
I’ve seen a lot of people complain online about getting dropped by a tinder date/etc because they swapped numbers and the other person realized they didn’t have an iPhone from the green text. Probably best not to date someone who would drop you over that, but there’s a weird elitism over blue/green texts.
Nah bro, if they bought an iPhone that means I can’t trust them with money. Screw that noise
As someone who started with Android, went to iOS, back to Android, and stayed with iOS I feel like you’re not trying to understand why some people choose an iPhone. I personally chose it because of the incredible battery life.
Skip the rest of this if you don’t want to hear a rambling mess of my phone history. There is a bit at the end regarding prices and why I own what I own now.
I had an HTC Desire, Samsung Galaxy S2, HTC One M7, Sony Xperia Z1, iPhone 7, Nexus 6P, iPhone X, iPhone 12 Pro, iPhone 15.
I’ve rooted a bunch of the early Android phones, loved having removable batteries and having expandable storage. As the platform evolved and started following Apple’s lead on design decisions (no removable batteries, no expandable storage, etc.) I was wondering why I was still with Android. After having a the Xperia I noticed that the battery didn’t last as long as it used to and if I remember right (possibly not, a bit tipsy) the Xperia was advertised as having a very long battery but it didn’t last very long past a year or so (was getting less than a full day and having to charge when I was driving home). I also had how slow Sony was to get OS upgrades it I decided to try a new phone. At the time I cared more about the battery and the iPhone 7 was my next try. It was amazing, I didn’t actually enable iMessage because I hated the bubble bs that I heard about. Eventually the 6p was announced and I missed the freedom of android and decided to give it a try. This was the generation where Android started cracking down on rooting and the battery life was awful. I eventually went full in on iOS after that and here we are. I miss what Android was, I do sometimes miss the tinkering but I also don’t hate how things normally just work.
Now in regards to cost, the name brands for Android phones are around the same price. They usually promise 2-3 years of updates while currently Apple had a history of supporting phones for 4-5 years.
I understand you can get lower range phones for cheaper but I guess I’m not into the phone scene like I used to because I guess I assume the lower range phones aren’t getting the updates that the flagships are and I don’t want to have to either compromise security or shell out more money to get another phone. So for me, I’m typically buying around a $1000 phone but after 3 years I can trade in my phone for a decent amount of money off the new one, or sell it for even more and pay a mid range Android prices for a new iPhone. Or if I’m not feeling the upgrades are worth it I’ll just stick with my phone for the 5 years+ (only went to iPhone 15 to get USB-C and remove lightning from my place).
As much as I dislike apple, I don’t really hold it against people if they choose to use iPhones. Iphones are overpriced, but they’re decent phones and I can’t really blame someone for not wanting to learn a different mobile OS or lose out on all the apps they’ve paid for. Also a lot of android OEMs make terrible design decisions with their software modifications/bloatware, and it can be really hard for someone non-tech savvy to know how to buy a good android phone. Iphones are comparably simple to shop for, you only have a few options and they’re all going to be decent (if not necessarily a good value).
Iphone elitism really bothers me though, it feels like it’s taking a lack of knowledge/experience and turning it into something to feel smug about.
It has started in Sweden with younger generations that wants to replicate everything from the US.
I’ve never heard of that, that’s kinda hilarious and really helps them dodge a bullet.
Apple has spent a significant amount of effort over creating a sense of elitism for using its products but that’s largely unique to the western world. Most of the world uses android devices by far.
Western World
Did you mean mostly just the US?
Android has almost 83% market share in the EU.
An interesting fact while researching is that Iphone has over a 99% market share in North Korea. I assumed that the data might be thrown off by one individual maybe owning like ten thousand Iphones… but surprisingly NK is more connected then I thought with like 7M registered cellular devices
Attempting to get a date in the current US scene was hard enough without this petty bullshit. While it was certainly disheartening to see another one slip away, knowing I was dodging a bullet was worth the time. I did enjoy (only once) getting “ugh green bubbles? Srs?” And sliding back “yeah sorry I have a Fold#, iPhones r for brokies” and blocking the contact
(People are free to own iPhone and you’re free to make your own descicions or debate the merits of android/iphone, I am more just intolerant of the fan elitism - not iPhone owners in general, hope you have a nice day)
Seems like Beeper will see the cleartext of the replies, though, since they send the notifications via BPNs, right?
[edit: thanks for the replies. I see now the footnote on their BPNs diagram: “Push notification does not contain message contents” so it seems like the answer is “no they will not”]
No, with this new app messages are encrypted between you and Apple’s iMessage servers using iMessage encryption more or less the same way an iPhone does.
The push service simply notifies your device it has a message waiting, no message content passes through Beeper servers.
In exchange for security loss, is it really worth it?
Edit: the downvotes are very expected. You people need to lean about why this is important
https://www.androidauthority.com/beeper-app-opinion-3345142/
First, the elephant in the room needs to be addressed: security. In Beeper’s start-up guide, the first thing you see is a huge alert box: “Beeper may be less secure than using encrypted chat apps by themselves.” Fundamentally, there’s no way to fix this. To use any of the chat apps, you need to link Beeper to that service using your credentials, which is inherently more insecure than logging into the app directly. Beeper is quick to defend itself by pointing out its robust privacy policy, its ethical business practices with a user-centered focus, and its use of end-to-end encryption (E2EE). However, that doesn’t protect your credentials from hackers that could gain access to Beeper and send your grandma a message through WhatsApp pretending to be you and asking to wire $1,000 to an account in China.
More in depth: https://www.reddit.com/r/beeper/comments/13hhx9e/transient_key_retention_a_suggestion_to_solve/?rdt=61709
These: https://www.androidauthority.com/beeper-app-opinion-3345142/
First, the elephant in the room needs to be addressed: security. In Beeper’s start-up guide, the first thing you see is a huge alert box: “Beeper may be less secure than using encrypted chat apps by themselves.” Fundamentally, there’s no way to fix this. To use any of the chat apps, you need to link Beeper to that service using your credentials, which is inherently more insecure than logging into the app directly. Beeper is quick to defend itself by pointing out its robust privacy policy, its ethical business practices with a user-centered focus, and its use of end-to-end encryption (E2EE). However, that doesn’t protect your credentials from hackers that could gain access to Beeper and send your grandma a message through WhatsApp pretending to be you and asking to wire $1,000 to an account in China.
More in depth: https://www.reddit.com/r/beeper/comments/13hhx9e/transient_key_retention_a_suggestion_to_solve/?rdt=61709
That’s about beeper, not beeper mini. Mini was just launched, that’s older information that only applies to the MITM version (beeper which is now beeper cloud).
Beeper mini talks directly to the services you use, no MITM, which is why they plan on adding more services to mini until it can replace the older Beeper (cloud).
There’s 0 security loss. Everything is on device. They reverse engineered iMessage and your device is seen as an iPhone to Apple.
Perhaps read before speaking?
