Something everyone saw coming
Beeper Mini’s iMessage app for Android is broken, possibly by Apple
Submitted 11 months ago by nave@lemmy.zip to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
Cheesus@lemmy.world 11 months ago
BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Meh, apple hasn’t stopped Beeper Cloud after a year, so…
LinuxSBC@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Because they can’t break that. It’s using real Macs, so if they break iMessage for Beeper Cloud, they break it for their customers.
ppb1701@kbin.social 11 months ago
FlashZordon@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I know Apple can work fast but I actually thought they were going to last at least another couple of weeks.
jdrch@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Yeah I was wondering how they were pulling that off without registering the phone number or iCloud account with Apple.
In any case, this also shows that iMessage can be spoofed.
BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 11 months ago
They were registering the number and iCloud account, that’s how it works.
They just built their own ANP service to interface with GCM.
I tried it, it used my existing iCloud account to send messages. Could do that if it didn’t connect to iCloud and get the RSA key.
jdrch@lemmy.world 11 months ago
to stop using it you have to de-register your phone number from iCloud.
Ah, TIL. I was wondering that. I’ll avoid it then.
MyPornAlt@lemmynsfw.com 11 months ago
If I understand how this works though, it should be a relatively easy fix. They just need to get some more device creds to spoof with.
autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] 11 months ago
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Beeper Mini, the Android app born from a reverse-engineering of Apple’s iMessage service, is currently broken, and it is unknown whether it will resume functioning.
Beeper desktop users received a message from co-founder Eric Migicovsky late on Friday afternoon, noting an “iMessage outage” and that “messages are failing to send and receive.”
Comments on Beeper’s status post on X (formerly Twitter) suggested mixed results, at best, among users.
To both outlets, Migicovsky offered the same comment, re-iterating his belief that it was in the best interests of Apple to let iPhone owners and Android users send encrypted messages to one another.
Reddit user moptop and others suggested that Beeper’s service used encryption algorithms whose keys were spoofed to look like they came from a Mac Mini running OS X Mountain Lion, perhaps providing Apple a means of pinpointing and block them.
Beeper Mini’s iMessage capabilities, for which the company was planning to charge $1.99 per month after a seven-day trial, were more than a feature.
The original article contains 440 words, the summary contains 165 words. Saved 62%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
jcrabapple@infosec.pub 11 months ago
Called it. I know it wouldn’t make it to the weekend.
The iMessage exclusivity and elitism is far too important to Apple and their users.
Veedem@lemmy.world 11 months ago
The users don’t care about the exclusivity. They care about two things:
Eldritch@lemmy.world 11 months ago
The people complaining about green bubbles would like to have a word with you. They like the features. They don’t specifically care about the features. It’s what everyone else they want to talk to uses. Lots of other apps have similar features. So features isn’t the reason people choose iMessage.
habanhero@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
There is a group of users who care a lot about exclusivity because it signifies unique status (expensive luxury goods, “ultra” version of products that looks distinctly different). Even more users don’t want to be left out of the “cool” group and that’s why many people buy iPhones in the first place.
The fact that Beeper exists proves that people coveted the “blue bubble” else we wouldn’t even be having this discussion in the first place.
2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de 11 months ago
I would REALLY like a MessageKit like they already have CallKit which allows integrating other messengers with the Messages app so I can just use the one app for everything. Probably wishful thinking though.
edinbruh@feddit.it 11 months ago
I think it’s only important to Apple, it’s not beneficial to anyone else
Eldritch@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Yes, their users don’t really care. Beyond the fact that it’s what everyone they tend to talk to uses. And it’s annoying to them when they have to talk to people who don’t.