I recall some pretty bold statements being made that Apple couldn’t stop this reverse engineering from working ever in the early days of tech reporting on this.
Even as a Android user I thought this was pretty bold claims to make as this whole walled garden is a big part of the Apple brand and they will need to protect this as they really don’t have leading software inovation and they are no longer ahead on tech advances or specs that made the first couple of iPhones ground breaking.
Since they are a couple to a few years behind the Android features and specs, they need to protect the special brand identity above all else so I expected them to tweak things to break anything they don’t want to have happen to their systems.
I can’t blame them at all from a business prospective. While I don’t like or enjoy their products, they had built a great brand that sells itself for those that “want to be different” but actually the same as all of their friends.
Yeah. I mean, the actual reverse engineering is something Apple wouldn’t be able to stop them from doing. But anyone who thought Apple couldn’t stop them from using that reverse engineering to connect to iMessage was delusional. And if it had become more of a cat and mouse situation where Beeper was able to keep gaining access, Apple would have sued the pants off them. Apple, as shitty of a company as they are, have every right to control access to their own APIs.
No matter what the technical reality of Beeper was, this was like claiming God couldn’t kick you out of Heaven if they wanted to.
Apple has army of devs, a bottomless wallet, and is extremely petty and controlling about their garden. If you found a hole in the wall, they’d go as far as to build a whole new wall just to stop you. And they can do that, because it’s their garden. You have no power there.
I support what Beeper tried to do, but it was never going to work. Apple’s garden needs regulation to crack open, you can’t do it with software.
Don’t talk about your fantasy religion
Behind in specs? Depends on which specs I guess — but CPU/GPU performance is AFAIK pretty great? https://www.tomsguide.com/features/iphone-15-pro-benchmarks
Features, yeah, depends on what you’re looking for. AFAIK iPhones are the only mainstream phone to offer satellite texting though.
I have both an iPhone (work) and an android (personal), and they both…kinda just work 🤷
Maybe one of the features they thought about is how some Android phones install Facebook and other crapware that you may not be able to delete.
it’s now fully focused on “our mission beyond iMessage” and building “a universal, multi-network chat app.”
I would absolutely love this. I really miss Gaim, Adium, libpurple, etc…
fyi the mentioned app they’re working on is already available in limited release: https://www.beeper.com/
just keep in mind that if you connect any service to it, the messages will be decrypted on Beeper’s server before sent either way, so theoretically they could be reading your messages even if you send them through an e2ee service.
Thank Google for killing xmpp.
Last I checked Google doesn’t control XMPP, it still exists, is still being developed, numerous apps us it.
Whole saga has been stupid
The whole reason for Beeper to even exist is stupid.
It was never going to work, but they shouldn’t have needed to try in the first place.
Beeper Mini, I can agree the reason for existing is stupid. Not Beeper as a whole. I greatly like having a one stop shop for all of my messaging platforms. It’s a straight up fucking pain in the ass to have Messages, Messenger, Whatsapp, Discord, Telegram, LinkedIn, and more all having their own specific applications with separate lists of people in them. Gaim/Pidgin/Trillian/Adium had the right idea back in the day and if it isn’t done at an application level like Beeper, then I would really like it done at an OS level where all apps of a communication/chat type have their notifications and interactivity bundled. There’s going to be platform exclusive features that don’t have parity that wouldn’t be able to be part through or presented the same, but communications are such a base level function of these devices and the generally one-application-at-a-time type of display of phones makes the balkanization of communication mediums even more annoying.
Yeah also iOS is getting RCS support soon so the whole point is moot. The whole blue bubble thing is a lot of people with way too much time on their hands to get worried about stuff that doesn’t matter at all.
The bubbles are pointless. What matters is that apple will not send media like videos or pictures over anything but sms to android users, which means it gets transcoded down to 2.5MB max. This means that any media, which is a lot of what people send nowadays, looks like absolute trash going apple to android.
Its a sleazy, underhanded way to get people to buy into the apple ecosystem so they can stop getting tiny, grainy videos of their friends/family.
Just don’t send shit from apple? If you want to send me shit, get a decent phone or don’t bother?
Not sure why apple enshittifying their messages is supposed to incentivise me to do anything but ridicule them.
So your answer is “everyone I know with an apple device should stop using the thing that apple made sure works wonderfully for them and shift to another app to talk to me.”
That’s just not in touch with reality at all. What people actually do is keep using iMessage and sending shitty compressed media to android users. That’s the problem people are actually complaining about, not some “bubble color” strawman.
I’d count on Apple making the RCS bubbles green too, just to sow further confusion.
Yeah and anybody complaining about it at that point is just being a whiny child.
It shows how closed and limited is the Apple environment.
Fuck apple beyond words for creating a bully situation with children because of their fucked UX design and unwillingness to simply release their own iMessage app for android.
Jfc. The snowflakes here.
Yes, fuck Apple, sure. But tell your kids they don’t have to care. In the end it’s just a computer and any relationship that actually matters won’t teeter on which fucking app you use. If your kid is getting ostracized from a group ONLY because they don’t use iMessage, tell them they’ve found the wrong group and they’re worth way more than that. Real friends are more than willing to take a 2-second step and install a second chat app to accommodate friends who cannot use iMessage. There are more androids out there than iPhones anyway.
Corporations are not your friends. They will not take responsibility for your kids unless they’re forced or they decide they want to get paid for doing it. Your kids deserve to know how to navigate society despite this. Teach them.
Seriously.
It’s bizarre you’re getting downvoted for saying this. Yeah, a lot of teens / kids won’t understand, but that’s fine if they don’t immediately understand. Pain brings progress.
Yeah! What a terrible job they’ve done raising those bullies!
That’s a real strong reach there buddy.
It show how closed and limited is the apple environment.
