this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2023

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Beeper Mini is the iMessage for Android app we’ve been waiting for - Mishaal Rahman (www.androidauthority.com)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

28 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Personally I don't care about this since apple is adopting rcs next year. But its a great thing for people who want iMessage.

all 29 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 29 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

It looks like Beeper has purchased the software from the person who developed this, but his GitHub repo for it is still up.

He has also created a way to permanently side load apps on iPhone without jailbreaking. I imagine Apple will be working on both of these "problems".

iMessage reverse engineering hack that was purchased by Beeper: https://github.com/JJTech0130/pypush

iPhone side loading: https://github.com/SideStore

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Definitely going to look into this when I have the time. If it's not using your Apple ID for authentication (like the article says), what's to stop anyone from spoofing anyone else's phone number?

The pypush readme doesn't have a lot of details so I guess I'll just need to try it to see.

Edit: Looks like he's distributing "a framework from an old version of macOS, in order to call some obfuscated functions", which the script pulls from his GitHub. This is likely a copyright violation. If Beeper Mini is doing the same thing, I'd expect them to get sued into oblivion the second Apple takes notice.

It's not clear which version of macOS he pulled this from. There's always the risk that Apple will simply axe support for it. I don't recall them breaking support for older OSes with iMessage in the past but I haven't followed that closely so I'm not sure.

Update:

Just ran it on my desktop. It immediately prompts for a username and password, presumably for an Apple ID. I didn't continue because I don't want to use my real Apple ID. The article says Beeper Mini doesn't need an Apple ID at any point. After a little searching, it looks like iPhones actually don't need an Apple ID to use iMessage. I was not aware of that. So I guess Beeper is not using the exact same mechanism as pypush.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

Beeper has been working in this space for awhile - there's no way they would publish an app with a copyright violation. I assume they have a workaround for that aspect.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

a text message for verification from Apple confirms ownership

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

I think it's awesome that they paid the dev. More companies should do that for open source projects

[–] [email protected] 24 points 11 months ago

Eh, imessage isn't worth paying a subscription for. Not a monthly one for sure. Like, I'm glad people have the option now, but I just don't see the benefit being high enough to warrant a subscription.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago (3 children)

tbh, I don't like where this new product seems to be taking Beeper. I was a giant fan of Beeper because they were a huge contributor to the matrix project. But with them creating an entirely new app that doesn't rely on matrix at all, it looks like they may be looking to pivot away and create their own client-side implementations rather than use matrix bridges. It would be sad to lose a contributor to the matrix space.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

In the future, we are planning to add Matrix network support back in, along with support for the 15 other chat networks in Beeper Cloud. Read more about our roadmap.

from the beepers own post instead of this reblog

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

Beeper Mini is also unfortunately closed source

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Yes. Hopefully they'll continue to maintain the mautrix bridges they already have.

Also it's sad to see Beeper misusing the term open source for the source available SSPL [1]. Beeper is free not to use an open source license. But an open source "license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor" [2], so it's misleading to call their demo [3] open source.

I do believe supporting the different messaging services client side could be a better experience than relying on a server to translate between different protocols.

[1] https://blog.opensource.org/the-sspl-is-not-an-open-source-license/

[2] https://opensource.org/osd/

[3] https://github.com/JJTech0130/pypush

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Downloaded out of curiosity but my Micro-G based ROM isn't supported.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Stock pixel is giving me error.null when trying to sign in, I think the release is just bugged

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (5 children)

But why the obsession with iMessage and apple product?!? Cannot every people at least send a SMS to others and that's it? We don't care about the colour of the bubble!!!!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

I just want better upload limits which RCS gives us. So personally, I'm indifferent.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Upset about getting curved by the only Tinder match they'd had in months after she saw their green bubble

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

It basically copies the best of every other messaging platform. I was at my in-laws where everyone on my wife's side has an iPhone and we're talking about a LOT of the features.

can tell if notifications are turned off on phone
read receipts
higher quality limit on video/pictures sent
messaging that can be done in wifi-only areas (imagine having a few group threads/people you CANT talk to while at home because you live in a dead zone)

Any other big feature of any other messaging app I was able to think of (Signal/Whatsapp, discord, slack) is all there (except public chatrooms and private servers obvs), WITH OS integration

I still like my pixel, but I get it now.

Still holding out hope that Google allows for RCS features to come to Google voice.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Yeah, I'm using Google RCS Message too, let's hope Apple will integrate all the RCS features too

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It's not about the color, sms is an ancient and limited piece of tech

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

yes, we need E2E encryption, at least

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

People care about the color of the bubble, even if you don't. A LOT of place's don't regularly use SMS.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

If it's that Beeper then it's not just about imessage, but facebook messenger, whatsapp, instagram, telegram, viber and a few others too. Beeper supports all that, by using Matrix bridges.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

No, its a new app! They built specifically for iMessage only. Learn more here: https://blog.beeper.com/p/introducing-beeper-mini-get-blue

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Interesting. I just checked and found the information. It sounds like they want to rebuild the whole app and just add one service at a time. They are starting with just iMessage.

https://www.beeper.com/faq#what-is-beeper

Edit: I wonder how long this will last. They aren't using a Mac to log you into your iCloud account with this. They have found a workaround.

"This is now possible because the iMessage protocol and encryption have been reverse engineered by jjtech, a security researcher."

Edit 2: I'm really curious about this. The researcher has some Python that can run anywhere and let you send iMessages. It seems like something the Apple would shutdown, but, on the other hand, I wouldn't expect Beeper to introduce an app that might get disabled.

https://github.com/JJTech0130/pypush

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm confused about this article because I have Beeper, but they make this statement:

"Beeper Mini is a new app from the folks behind Beeper, a unified chatting and inbox app that brings together the best chat apps under one roof."

I haven't heard about a mini version.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Its a new version they called Mini because it only supports iMessage natively. There is a research who reverse engineered how iMessage works that's how they manage to make it work without an Apple account and just your phone number.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Sounds like it's something Apple could easily kill by changing something in the protocol that would require it to be re-reverse engineered.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

I'm not entirely sure if iMessage still works right now for phones that ran out of support, but such a change would kill it for those phones too.