Senator Warren calls out Apple for shutting down Beeper’s ‘iMessage to Android’ solution::U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is throwing her weight behind Beeper, the app that allowed Android users to message iPhone users via iMessage,
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Warren, an advocate for stricter antitrust enforcement, posted her support for Beeper on X (formerly Twitter) and questioned why Apple would restrict a competitor.
In explaining its decision to cut off Beeper’s access to its servers, Apple said that it took “steps to steps to protect our users by blocking techniques that exploit fake credentials in order to gain access to iMessage.” It also suggested that Beeper’s techniques “posed significant risks to user security and privacy, including the potential for metadata exposure and enabling unwanted messages, spam, and phishing attacks.”
In addition, Cupertino-based tech giant argued against Beeper’s security, saying it was not able to verify that messages sent through unauthorized means were able to maintain the end-to-end encryption iMessage offers.
Beeper, however, claims it was able to offer the same level of encryption as iMessage uses, but did not put its app through a third-party security audit prior to its launch, which would have strengthened its argument.
As of its most recent update on Sunday, the startup posted that work continues on the outage and it hopes to “have good news to share soon.”
Beeper Mini, then, became an app that focused solely on bringing iMessage to Android for $1.99/month, with the intention of expanding its capabilities over time.
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Who the hell uses iMessage? Do some people really only have friends with apple phones?
iPhones have the largest share of the US smartphone market. iMessage is the default messaging app on every iPhone, and cannot be changed. Ergo, iMessage is one of the top 5 largest messaging apps in the US. I believe it’s number 3 or 4 behind FB Messenger, WhatsApp, and FaceTime (also an Apple product).
I’d assume some people use it when it’s available and just use regular texts or something like Signal for non apple contacts.
I’d be really surprised if anyone only uses it and just never talks to anyone with an android…
Anyone who doesn’t want to touch a Facebook product with a thousand foot pole.
And then there’s me, who doesn’t want to touch a Facebook, Apple, or Google product with a thousand foot-pole.
This is largely a North American problem. More than 50% of phones are iPhone, and the de facto texting for iPhone users is iMessage. While WhatsApp is the default IM for most of the rest of the world, it’s iMessage in North America.
I’m so annoyed by people dismissing a standard protocol for sending messages builtin to phones and the networks they run on as unnecessary. We should have choice, but why in the fuck should we not have the most basic fucking infrastructure already in place that works with every device and without needing a new account/ app and needing to wrangle people we know into using the that app? I truly don’t get why people seem against a fucking standard just because they found a workaround for not having one
So much incredible UX design work has been undertaken by the experts in charge of it… then we’re forced to reassess solutions (Signal or Telegram?), remarket them (everybody download this app!), support them (no grandma when you don’t have your glasses Siri can’t send Signal messages).
Great job with your stock Apple and for driving the blind to tears with such excellent accessibility features and epic hardware… but you suck for stigmatizing kids’ digital lives and causing so much duplicative effort and confusion in the messaging space.
Yes, apprently. I didn’t know that. I think less then 10% of the people I know have iPhones. It’s all Android.
Different countries have wildly different phone and messaging systems preferences.
If it accessed the message system directly then it makes sense. They’re was one just before it that ran on Mac mini farms.
Beeper Mini registered your phone number with Apple and connected directly to the iMessage servers. That version was killed after three days of usage. The mac mini farm still works but that’s just through an apple ID email address.
I recall reading somewhere that you could register your number by putting your SIM card in some old iPhone and activating iMessage and your number gets linked to your Apple ID, once that’s done, you could power off the iPhone and put it back in your Android. Although there was some caveat like needing to repeat this process a few months(?) or something otherwise your number would drop off. Not sure if all of this is still valid though.
Large bodies of people (Congress) cam do multiple things at once. Chill your biscuits
Edit: thongs -> things
Yeah, how can they discuss two (2!) subjects at the same time over there??? I don’t even have strong opinions one way or the other but had to call out your lazy whataboutism.
