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Beeper Mini Is Back

https://blog.beeper.com/p/beeper-mini-is-back

Bug fixes and other improvements We've created an updated version of Beeper Mini that fixes an issue that caused messages not to be sent or received. You can get the update directly from beeper.com/update on your phone. We are still doing some final testing before submitting the update to the Google Play Store for distribution to all users. If you encounter any issues, you may need to uninstall and reinstall the app.

90 comments

tigerjerusalem

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If Apple doubts the security and privacy of our app, we’re willing to share the entire Beeper Mini codebase with a mutually agreed upon 3rd party security research firm.

What a beautiful way to call out Apple's bs.

Nusm

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kick_out_the_jams

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Apple is just going to turn the codebase to iMessage over to a 3rd party?

You've got that backwards - beeper was offering to do that for their own codebase.

bigkahuna1986

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Reading comprehension is hard.

tigerjerusalem

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Read Beeper's statement again, because you misunderstood it.

Nusm

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That's why I deleted my post.

tigerjerusalem

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Oh, sorry. My app didn't update it, I was still able to read it. Nevermind then.

Nusm

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To be fair, I’m not sure how deleting a post works on Lemmy. It may still be visible to other instances, I don’t know.

doublejay1999

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I can’t see Apple letting this ride

Semi-Hemi-Demigod

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Which is rich considering they reverse-engineered MS Office formats to get their office suite to work

filcuk

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Is that true? I thought the specs were publicly available

Railcar8095

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AFAIK only the "new" formats are (for the basic apps, the ones ending on x). Apple's office suite is much older than those.

some_designer_dude

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I think most if not all of those formats are plaintext? Open a .doc and it’s a heap of garbage XML-like soup.

paf0

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It is now but the older formats used to be more like an executable byte code. Efficient but insecure.

BearOfaTime

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Well they've blocked it once. It'll be interesting to watch. Not sure of the legalities. Hard to say.

Usernameblankface

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I'm still unclear on why this whole thing is so important that it's worth putting time and money into finding a solution for the color of word bubbles.

Edit: all this time I thought it was just an argument over bubble colors. But no, it's also potato quality videos and pictures ruining every group message with both Apple and Android in the mix.

Sanctus

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Its not just the word bubbles. Pictures and videos come through on Android like complete shit. I can't even have my wife send me pictures of the kids cause I can't see them on the other end. Nor can I watch family videos sent to me. Its much more than simple colors, but of course kids are getting bullied for that.

Usernameblankface

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Now this makes sense, thank you. Garbage quality video and pictures are a so annoying. It seems to ruin an entire group chat if one of them is on an iPhone. I often have to wait until I see someone in person or have them send it through a different app for the video to work.

I have yet to get a group conversation to switch to Signal or something to avoid the potato quality videos

joyjoy

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Apple could fix this by uploading the photos to iCloud and sending a link. But improving the experience of SMS chats is not profitable, so they instead actively downgrade the experience.

LifeInOregon

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I always send an iCloud link for photos when I know that there’s someone who may not be using an iPhone. I’m not sure why others don’t. It’s especially useful when sending large numbers of pictures.

Usernameblankface

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That's what the Verizon messages app does, just with a Verizon website instead of iCloud. I found it very annoying and slow to use.

HidingCat

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Yea, this is a USA problem. Elsewhere everyone just uses a messaging app of their network's choice.

Z4rK

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It’s not entirely true. In Scandinavia for example, iPhone is the majority market share, on average higher than that of United States.

ThePantser

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Tell the wife to use telegram or another messaging client. There are plenty of perfectly good alternatives to imessages.

Sanctus

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We use messenger, which I also don't like. Its ridiculous. If these fucken tech giants aren't going to right interoperability standards then someone needs to force them to. We made all this shit to make life better and somehow have forgotten that was the fucken goal.

killeronthecorner

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For better or worse you happen to be using the one messaging app that is broadly agreed to be worse than iMessage.

Signal and Telegram are far superior, even putting aside the most glaring flaws of the other two.

spacecowboy

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Signal/Telegram are not very common where I’m at. I have Signal, nobody in my contacts does.

killeronthecorner

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I've successfully converted a spouse, which I don't think is out of the question w.r.t who I replied to.

I've also converted my main friend group, but appreciate that's insurmountable for a lot of people - genuinely, people hate change after all. I'm lucky to have a lot of friends who work in tech and are receptive to trying new things.

Sanctus

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Its convenience. Why have both of us download a new app strictly for pictures when she is already on Facebook, and I have a dusty one with no posts for a decade. Plus getting someone in the US to download a 3rd party messaging app is like asking them to respond to the Nigerian Prince for his offers.

killeronthecorner

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Fair enough. It's kind of an oxymoron to worry about the trust of a given 3rd party messaging app while using products from a known, wide scale, repeated privacy intruder like Meta, but you have what you need in terms of convenience so I won't make a further case for an alternative.

Sanctus

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Believe me, I know. I wouldn't be using it if the people I need it for would switch. But people don't give a shit here. I gave up trying to move apps. The rest of my shit is arch linux and de googled. This is the last hold out.

BearOfaTime

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I'd say Telegram isn't superior. It's default encryption is nowhere near iMessage.

And if you step up the encryption, you lose group chats.

For it's flaws, iMessage is a very good solution, one that Signal was emulating for a while.

killeronthecorner

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I'm not criticising the UX of iMessage for Apple to Apple comms. It's solid, and was leader-in-class for a very long time.

jol

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Why messenger of all things. That's the worst one.

BearOfaTime

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Why should they be forced to interop? That'll just reduce it to the lowest commend denominator. What impetus would any of them have for investing in making a better system if everyone can use their work?

We have choices. We don't have to use iMessage, or Beeper. We can use other messengers.

Forcing interop means all messengers will function the same... Again at the LCD level.

Plus different messengers have different capabilities, different use-cases.

Frankly I don't even want to use SMS at all, and haven't wanted to for 10 years. I want a messenger that's independent of my mobile device that I can simply sign into just about anywhere. Kind of like instant messengers were in the late 90's (which often used things like XMPP).

Ten+ years ago I was running instant messengers on Android. Pidgin, Trillian, etc, logging in to multiple messengers. That should've been the path forward, but people couldn't be bothered because SMS was free, native, and "good enough" (in their minds).

And yet back then any conversations I had on any device showed up on all devices. With no dependence on my SIM or phone hardware ID.

Sanctus

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interoperability is the capability of a product or system to interact and function with others. Why would that force them to all function the same? Why would that be bad for us as consumers? Why does it matter how many choices we have if those choices restrict us to using a specific one? Interoperability solves all of these and causes none of the problems you are stating. Of course they have no incentive for doing this as it doesn't benefit a corporation, they're only incentivized to entrap people in their ecosystems cause it makes them the most money. Different messaging standards is one of the ways they keep us locked in. This is a choice, too, one made by the tech giants for you with no choice in the matter. You can't send a nice quality picture from iMessage to Google Messages, get fukt.

BearOfaTime

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How else do you make them interop, other than by finding a common mapping?

Why would any company map their extended or unique elements, which they developed, to meet government regs?

They won't, they'll drop to the least effort required to get the regulators off their backs.

I have a choice. Apple users have a choice. There are plenty of other messenging systems out there.

MS Teams

Skype

Element

SimpleX

Signal

Wire

Wiremin

Litewire

Discord

Conversations

Snikket

Briar

Zello

TwinMe

Tox

Keybase

Threema

Jami

XMPP (which some listed use)

Just go to Wikipedia for a long list of different messengers and their capabilities.

Sanctus

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Choice is nice, but my problem is the choices can't communicate with each other correctly. Thats an issue. Its an issue when our communication devices are not effective at communicating what we want to. We are already seeing the bare ass minimum right now, which is just SMS. They're doing that now, the bare minimum. If Apple was forced to fix their shitty conversion instead of it just picking the worst resolution possible, they would do it. It doesn't matter what app I use because most people in the US use iMessage, and thats where I do most of my communicating.

Tertle950

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>"Interop bad"

>using lemmy

Gormadt

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I prefer Signal to telegram and it's been amazing the whole time I've used it

Now if I could just convince more people I know to switch to it that'd be great

RGB3x3

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The better option is to push Google and Apple to adopt a completely open version of RCS with end to end encryption so that regardless of whatever app someone is using, you know for a fact that they can receive your message.

The broken messaging ecosystem between WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, and others is a shit sandwich.

People would lose their minds if email was the same way.

Fly4aShyGuy

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That's certainly less desirable option for many. But why is wanting modern cross platform messaging so bad? It works iPhone to iPhone, works Android to Android, theoretically if there were other players (maybe if BB or Windows still had phones) they could also achieve the same using RCS with Android. This argument is and has always been about default protocols that phone can communicate with. Of course downloading 3rd party chat apps, emailing them, mailing them a letter, using a cup and string, stopping communication because they chose to use a phone from a different manufacture are all still "options".

derf82

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That doesn’t solve the interoperability problem. You can’t guarantee who has what messaging app. You shouldn’t need a 3rd party app for basic functionality, anyway.

Usernameblankface

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I like Signal better than my standard android SMS app. I can send more pictures at a time, video at high quality, and it does groups well.

BearOfaTime

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Right, right.

Do you hear yourself?

ripcord

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I'm still unclear why this gets asked every post unless people keep ignoring the answers.

Fly4aShyGuy

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Me too, really do not understand this on Lemmy of all places. It isn't and never has been outside of people still school age been about the color of the bubble. I truly want to understand this to the point I'm going to start asking anyone who posts this personally the following:

Do you A) really think that the following are not at all important to people:

Read receipts
Typing indicators
Reactions
Transferring photos/videos in a way that doesn't look they were shot on an early 90s camera phone
Potential E2EE *(Potential because my points are not necessarily specific to Beeper Mini and iMessage, but also relevant to the conversation around Apple supporting RCS and the unknowns about how that will work)

B) Not aware of these things or any of the differences between iMessage, SMS, RCS, etc and truly believe the only difference is the bubble color? C) Is this just a smug reaction to the possibility that one of these App work arounds work iMessage will no longer be as exclusive if they were to succeed, and trying to reduce down the desires of those who would use it (and also the desires of Apple users who want these benefits with everyone regardless of who manufactured their phone)

@Usernameblankface@lemmy.world I'd be curious to know which phone platform you use?

ripcord

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So you're saying it's just about bubble color

Fly4aShyGuy

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I'm agreeing with you maybe I'm just misreading the tone of your reply haha.

ripcord

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Yeah I was being stupid/silly :)

joyjoy

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The color doesn't matter to anyone not using iMessage. In fact, the iPhone user is the one whose message is green.

daq

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I think the point is all these features are supported by RCS. Open standard that would be trivial for Apple to implement. They choose not to because they are greedy cunts. They are fully aware that this causes bullying and inability of tech illiterate to communicate with their friends/family.

Nobody older than 13 cares about color of text messages and most people recognize convenience of a single app for all messaging needs. This is an issue that Apple could trivially make disappear overnight if they weren't cunts.

Fuck Apple.

Dumbkid

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Yeah RCS supports all of these so it's apples refusal to use established standards as usual

Usernameblankface

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I use Android, specifically Samsung.

I thought it was just the bubble color thing and people getting made fun of for their bubble color because that's what every headline on the subject is about, and comments rarely go into depth about the rest of the issues that come from this incompatibility.

I've noticed similar incompatibility between Verizon messages app and non-verizon standard messages apps.

Fly4aShyGuy

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Thanks for responding, genuinely trying to understand it a bit, admittedly expected that most fall into C) especially in these techy areas.

bamboo

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I have a friend who use iMessage on their Mac and will check that more often than their phone. If I text them during work hours, it'll be hours before hearing back from them. Turns out, from what I'm told, iMessage on Mac has a setting to not show SMS on the desktop, so my messages were only going to their phone, which wasn't checked as frequently. I guess when you enable SMS, notifications get messed up, and read SMS on your iPhone aren't synced, and show up as unread (or something like that). In anycase, SMS got turned off at some point.

Obviously, none of this is really my problem, but it's frustrating, more than just the color of the bubbles. The Network effect is real, and asking someone to switch to a new platform is not as easy as it sounds.

LifeInOregon

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If they enable iCloud sync for messages it will update everywhere, they can also make sure they have Text Message Forwarding selected on their phone. They’ll get the messages in a timely manner (I get mine at the exact same time as my phone) and read messages will be reflected in all locations. I’ve been using iMessage on a Mac, iPad, and iPhone in some combination or other since the feature was offered, and the only issue I’ve ever had with sync was when I did a clean setup on a new Mac instead of a setup from backup. The above options weren’t selected.

otl

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I’ve found this feature mostly reliable. Those times where it doesn’t work, or I’m travelling, or don’t have phone reception is kinda annoying. But being able to just use my Mac is fantastic.

Nima

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I'm not either. considering that over 70% of the world is on android, you'd think the compatibility problem would be laid on Apple and not 3rd party applications.

Streetdog

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70% of the world is using Google and Apple is giving Google the middle finger.

😂

joyjoy

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To be fair, I am using Google (via Android) and am also giving Google (Chrome) the middle finger.

crystenn

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iMessage lock in is almost exclusively a US problem (maybe EU, but i have no experience living there so i'm not sure). I'm from Malaysia and 99% of communication here is done through whatsapp and I know this is true for many other countries too. Line is frequently used in korea, Wechat in china, etc. It was only when I moved to the US that I used iMessage in any serious capacity

BearOfaTime

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But Apple users don't care enough to solve the issue. Partly they see it as an Android problem,if they see the problem at all.

In their defense, they have a messenger that works well, syncs to the desktop, sends high quality, etc, to other iOS users. So I can understand their not wanting to switch, or even seeing an issue.

Nima

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oh I understand yeah. certainly. but surely it's not difficult to explain it to most users.

them understanding or caring about the issue is another problem. brand loyalty is a thing. but then there's users for whom brand loyalty isn't really a choice, it's just what they're used to or they're not skilled enough to understand what the difference is.

i feel that's a much stronger problem here. that particular subset of people don't understand the device they are using. they're basically angry because the green people in their messages don't look right or don't load right. that makes it "bad" if you don't understand why.

basic understanding of the technology you carry in your pocket is lacking for a huge user base. but apple... kind of relies on people not understanding. it makes it easier for apple to go "Green text bad! hate people with that!" and still keep it's users that might not understand in the dark.

LazaroFilm

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Group chat. You can’t have a properly working group chat if there’s an android in the mix.

Usernameblankface

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Now that people bring up group chat, I realized that the opposite is also true. One apple in the mix will ruin all the videos in a group chat.

atocci

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Most Android phones use RCS now but iPhone doesn't, so with an iPhone in the chat it will also need to resort to sending SMS/MMS instead

BearOfaTime

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Group chat. You can’t have a properly working group chat if there’s ~~an android~~ SMS in the mix.

This is by Apple's design choice, not because Android.

Android can send as high a quality over SMS/MMS as the network will allow. iPhone can't.

In Apple's defense, you'd still lose all the iMessage features when SMS is involved, because what else are you going to do when one participant doesn't have iMessage? You'll fallback to the lowest common mechanism.

BearOfaTime

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You can’t have a properly working group chat if there’s ~~an android~~ SMS in the mix.

So anything that isn't iOS/iMessage.

BearOfaTime

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Whenever it has to fallback to SMS.

I mean there's really no other realistic way to enable a single app to utilize two very different communication "protocols" (in quotes, because SMS is only nominally a protocol).

I've always though iMessage was the approach to getting away from crappy SMS.

So when Signal did the same, I was very optimistic. It removed a barrier to entry for users by supporting SMS plus an encrypted method for connections that had Signal. And you could enable it to add a signature saying something like "Sent from Signal, this could be an encrypted conversation if you download Signal" or something like that. That was a great idea.

(weird, not sure why these are two comments and it looks like I replied to myself)

LufyCZ

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The reason is that if they have a solution, people will pay for it, and thus they'll make money.

otl

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It’s really about interoperability of systems, protocols, services, and clients. Since we’re both using Lemmy I assume we both understand at least a bit about the significance of interoperability.

I think it’s a shame that effort is put in to reverse engineering.

Azzu

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I mean theoretically it would be possible for people to use apps that are already cross platform, like Signal. People just care less than the inconvenience of installing an app on their phone.

otl

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Cross-platform clients, yes, but that's only a (small) part of the way there. For example, Signal is actively hostile to other client implementations just like Apple is with iMessage, unfortunately :(

Azzu

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While it's fine to criticize Signal in that instance, I hope no one discards it because of that. Things don't have to be perfect to be better alternatives, and Signal is so far along to be a good alternative that if you would personally, idk, insist on only using Matrix or whatever and refuse to use Signal, you'd probably be contraproductive for the whole privacy and openness thing.

It's fine to prefer something else but I think it's positive to be fine with using Signal too.

atrielienz

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Which is funny considering that apples current implementation is less secure because sending the non-imessage users from iMessage breaks the encryption, meaning everything sent to a non-imessage recipient is sent in plain text.

Usernameblankface

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Seems like it's designed to get Apple users to push away anyone who uses a non-apple device

BassDroid

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$10 says they want Apple to buy them out.

mosiacmango

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They intend to work with lots of services, it's just that imessage is getting the most focus right now.

If im not mistaken, they intend to eventually open source the code, so facebook/apple/google better buy quick.

Kolanaki

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Because people are stupid and the whole world's gone fucking crazy.

BearOfaTime

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Your ignorance oh what transpires doesn't mean people are crazy.

Annoying, yes. Crazy, no.

BearOfaTime

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OK. And?

It's been posted many times around here.

Here, let me help

https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=Why+are+iMessage+blue+bubbles+so+important

pineapplelover

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I mean I applaud the efforts but if you can convince your friends a family to use Signal, that's way better

Joelk111

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My dad texts. I've mentioned we could share HD videos and Photos over something like signal. He refused. RCS was a godsend for texting him. Making people change their ways isn't feasible, even if you're OK with using like 5 different texting apps.

LWD

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deleted

scarilog

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Underlying implementation already is. You can connect to iMessage and send and receive messages using the python implementation on your PC if you want.

xlash123

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Here is their POC in Python:https://github.com/JJTech0130/pypush

And their article explaining it: https://blog.beeper.com/p/how-beeper-mini-works

Azzu

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I mean, it won't be. It's quite clear that while the Beeper company may have good intentions on paper, they also definitely want to make as much money as possible. They aren't 100% bad, but also not 100% good either.

Considering they directly communicate with Apples servers and make money from that, I can't believe that their company will last long legally. The only way to keep Android users being able to use this will be to make it open source and go "underground". But I hope Apple will have a massive PR disaster on their hands while this happens.

qwrty

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Considering they directly communicate with Apples servers and make money from that...

But, isn't that what APIs do? Why would that get Beeper in legal trouble if they are paying their license fee? I'm not being facetious, genuinely curious.

Azzu

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There is no public iMessage API that people can pay to use. Beeper (or rather the code it's based on) reverse-engineered the iMessage protocol and server APIs and they simply make the same requests as the iMessage app on iOS would.

magnetosphere

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Saved my marriage.

I can’t tell if this guy is great at being sarcastic and I’m too dense to appreciate it, or if he’s genuinely clueless and thinks his complex relationship problems can be saved by a messaging app.