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Beeper couldn’t bring iMessage to Android — but it can still make a great chat app
(www.theverge.com)
this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2024
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Technology
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I really, really don't understand what their business plan was. At it's core it used an exploit to trick Apple into thinking the messages were legit, did they not think Apple was going to close the loophole?
If Apple wanted iMessage on android it would be on Android. The only people bringing iMessage to Android is Apple, and anyone who figures a way around that is going to get ban-hammered by Apple.
iMessage on Android wasn't their main goal, it's just what made them famous. they've set out as an all-in-one messaging app (basically they let you register on their Matrix server with bridges for other messaging servers, so that they can manage them for you if you trust them enough) that also included iMessage support. for now it's free but they're supposedly planning to add some extra features that will require a subscription.
You can also very easily run the bridges yourself if you don't trust them. I do so in my homelab, it was 10 minutes of work setting it all up. Super stable, and e2e from my side.
For me their value proposition is their new beta android app which is the best Android matrix client, and their quite fast matrix server. That might change in the future when conduit is fast enough...
Do you have a guide or list of links?
https://github.com/beeper/bridge-manager
Yeah I'm kind of puzzled by it too lol. I wish they had just kept their original solution of using Macs to run iMessage. Perhaps if they had gotten popular it still would have been blocked, but their whole strategy of being super open about it is odd. I suppose they thought they could fight it but evidently that wasn't the case.
Overall though I agree with the post, the app is really nice, the new android version is super slick and if they can get all the other connections working locally like they want, it'll be even better
They spent around $750,000 building that iMessage bridge...shame...However, there are many people self-hosting and still using iMessage on Android...that will, likely, get smacked down soon. I've used Beeper since the early Beta (a little over three years now) and I love it.
I can only speak for myself, but I'm a green bubble and proud. 🟢
Marketing, I for one had never heard of the app until the Apple fiasco they brewed up.
At some point they said that after beta it would be $9 a month. But that messaging seems to have disappeared.