Apple partly halts Beeper’s iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead
Apple partly halts Beeper’s iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead
Opinion: Beeper isn't just fighting Apple, it's pushing against human instincts.
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49I think the iMessage push is a US only thing, mainly because almost everyone uses SMS/iMessage for texting, and if you don't have an iPhone you're stuck with the standard SMS features.
In other parts of the world they use WhatsApp, Telegram, or other multi platform messaging apps, so no one really cares about iMessage.
34Yeah, I’m in the US. A lot of folks I know distribute themselves over Discord, Telegram, Signal, WhatsApp, and in a few cases Viber. Most text conversations of mine are just exchanging numbers with people then immediately asking to use another service regardless of colors 😅
I could just be in a weird bubble though.
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I've been on an iPhone for about 3.5 weeks now and iMessage is driving me nuts. It might be the reason I go back to Android.
- You cannot use any other apps for SMS messaging on an iPhone. iMessage is the only option.
- Unlike Google Messages, it is impossible to use a desktop app to send and receive your text messages... unless you replace all your computers with Macs. Most iPhone users don't have a Mac, so this is just missing functionality.
This is dumb. I used that feature constantly. It's the worst thing about the switch.
13Beeper on Desktop works for me but it’s a long waitlist. But it still works as of this moment. All my chat apps are linked to it, it’s amazing
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I feel the same way. The tinkerer in me was interested when it was first announced, then saw they wanted me to pay for it and immediately lost interest because I didnt think the app would make it to the second billing cycle. Apple blocked them even sooner than I thought! I wish north americans could move on from sms...
6I used it for a bit. It was nice sending and receiving images from iPhone using friends that didn't look like blown up 50x50 thumbnails of jpeg artifacting
6The apps built around it and linked in Apple's Messages app are the actual useful parts of it -- Facetime to video chat and Find My to continuously show your friends on a map
Plus, FaceTime is redundant many times over and Find My sounds like a privacy nightmare that I wouldn't give any permissions to anyway.
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They'll win if they file legal action. Their servers are not a public service and they offer no invitation for Beeper to use them for compute. A podcast app developer likened it to if a competing app tried to use his servers to sync podcast subscriptions. When you frame it as anything other than a big corporation stomping on a smaller company, it's obviously stealing resources. I am not endorsing either side. Just stating a fact.
19Beeper did mention the DMCA protection on reverse engineering.
That being said regardles if beeper wins or looses. If apple sues and at the same time breaks beeper mini they could run into financial trouble very quickly.
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I don't really get the big deal, it feels like a janky workaround when people could just use a different messaging platform and wait till Apple complies with the EU order
Around where I am, lots of friends have Apple devices but chats are still scattered across various messaging platforms
16Its just the silliest things. I would love for these people to be strapped into a chair, forcibly made to download Signal and open account, and be like "Oh, deng it Buck, its really not such a big fucking deal that I was bitching about nothing in relation to"
Do it to everyone who refuses out of non-principle and suddenly, the bullshit excuse ("but but nobody's on it") evaporates
7Or, a step further, since the original Beeper is a Matrix server with various open source messaging bridges slapped on it, with a fancy client interface... Why not just fucking use a Matrix server with those bridges set up? Or even set up your own Matrix server and iMessage bridge?
Beeper is literally paying people to set up open sources services for you. I'm not against this, it's a good business model, but Beeper has obviously put the cart before the horse here.
6
and wait till Apple complies with the EU order
I thought the EU had determined that iMessage will not be subject to the open messaging provisions.
iMessage will reportedly dodge EU regulations, won’t have to open up
3Agree on the janky workaround. Though according to sources for Bloomberg, the EU might not consider iMessage popular enough for the DMA, in case anyone is actually holding out hope for that.
1Ah good to know, seems more of a thing in the US
Other messaging platforms it is
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Seems like they're shooting themselves in the foot with that one, non-Apple users usually aren't willing to convert to Apple products, and this is only going to widen that gap.
7The whole walled garden thing feels like an effective way to keep potential customers out.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
It wasn't the resulting lower-quality images, loss of encryption, and strange "Emphasized your message" reaction texts.
There was a gathering on Saturday, and she had to double-check with a couple people about the details after showing up inadvertently early at the wrong spot.
Migicovsky pointed to Epic's victory at trial against Google's Play Store ("big tech") as motivation.
Citing privacy, security, and spam concerns, Apple stated it would "continue to make updates in the future" to protect users.
I asked Migicovsky by direct message if, given Apple's stated plan to continually block it, there could ever be a point at which Beeper's access was "settled," or "back up and running," as he put it in his post on X (formerly Twitter).
"Us," he clarified, meant both Apple's customers using iMessage and Android users trying to chat securely with iPhone friends.
The original article contains 432 words, the summary contains 140 words. Saved 68%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
0This is by far the most useless thing I’ve seen you generate.
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Omg who cares or even uses this 😂
0I hate Apple, but they are entirely in the right here
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