Yup. Honestly, I’m still kinda confused about what they were thinking having their business model rest upon this kind of reverse-engineering thing tbh (rather than the more stable Matrix bridge model).
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Had a feeling this was coming… But I didn’t expect it would happen so quickly.
I’m also quietly fearing that as Google works through their list of ways to make adblocking difficult, worse, or extremely frustrating specifically on Youtube, they will eventually get around to focusing on the 3rd party frontends.
Yup. Honestly, I’m still kinda confused about what they were thinking having their business model rest upon this kind of reverse-engineering thing tbh (rather than the more stable Matrix bridge model).
I agree (with respect to the vulnerability of centering your business model on this, but the Matrix Bridge model has its own significant shortcomings right? Most importantly it breaks E2EE (which to me at least is what makes iMessage compatibility attractive in the first place), Pretty much the only reason I use iOS is E2EE in iMessage and ADP, if I could, I would go back to Android.
I’m wondering if there are any decent mature reputable self-hosted solutions.
you could self host the matrix bridge: GitHub - mautrix/imessage: A Matrix-iMessage puppeting bridge
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Is it about “brand and reputation” protection? I love how Apple acts like a petulant child.
I think part of the marketing was that it did not use a Mac Server in between (like jmpchat?) to send correct color bubbles.
Thats fair
jpm.chat has nothing to do with iMessage. They are providing basically XMPP to POTS/SMS/MMS bridge, and some stuff surrounding that. You can also use them with Matrix and SIP in some capacity, but their focus is XMPP.
It was and is Beeper who is doing the Mac in the cloud thing. That still works fine and they haven’t stopped. This solution of theirs uses Matrix with bridges. They just also developed the “Beeper Mini” app for Android to talk directly to Apple servers, which now stopped working. Maybe that can be fixed, or not. If not, pretty sure they’ll just go back to working on their Matrix-based cloud thing.
Interesting. I did not know this! Would be interesting to try it out if I had any interest in using iMessage and if they offered any way to sign-up other than through Google. I’ll keep an eye on it, though, at least their plans look like they’re trying to create a modern version of something like Pidgin back in the day. Being able to use ICQ, AIM, XMPP etc. at the same time in a single app was sooo good. Good times. Too bad everything is so damned closed nowadays.
Beeper mini has released an update which has made it working again but now you only have the option of entering your apple id to start using it.
i am just testing it with a separate apple id created.
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They are back now with no subscription needed🙂.
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Thou shalt not infringe upon the walled garden without relieving the burden of your finances unto Apple and partaking with the consumption of its most decadent produce. Only then shall the freshest breath of azure air be gently blown upon thy chat bubbles and be safely set apart away from the unwashed green pedestrian masses.
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I honestly don’t know why they even bothered launching Beeper Mini, unless they think Apple might consider officially launching iMessage on Android in the future, and this is an insane 4D-chess ploy to be acquired by Apple since they’ve already done the work building one. But that would be crazy. The whole thing makes no sense to me.
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Very strange overall
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My guess is they were relying on a combination of being (1) too small and inconsequential for Apple to care about, in combination with (2) devising a method that they (mistakenly) believed would be difficult to obstruct without obstructing “legitimate” uses of i Message as well.
OR the cynical interpretation that they just saw it as a win win situation, best case scenario Beeper Mini isn’t blocked and people flock to it, worst case scenario it gets blocked and in the process a rather obscure/unknown company gets a lot of positive press and attention that they wouldn’t have otherwise. Similar to Apple v the FBI, in terms of PR it doesn’t really matter that the iPhone in question was cracked right after the court case (and probably could’ve done so before the court case if they had wanted to), what people remember is that Apple went up against the US government. Beeper/Nothing is in many ways in a similar position with much less to lose.
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It is at the very least getting attention and air time. Now people know about Beeper mini and upsell to their Beeper cloud, a paid product that does Matrix bridging to 15 different chat networks.
I think its mostly option 2. but we dont know how close they actually are. Everyone seems to believe it will always be trivial for Apple to block them. But could also be the case that it was only possible because of a minor mistake that can be corrected.
Anyway I do enjoy these cat and mouse games. I will always cheer on people trying to reverse engineer stuff whatever it might be.
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It just seems like a pretty untenable business model tbh, with all the interests platforms have in keeping their gardens walled
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I don’t see apple and google making headways into making an interoperable e2ee messaging ecosystem. And even when they do so it would still be bad experience than using an app like signal.
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Just some muscles jerking … the body is dead, it just doesn’t know it yet.
On a more serious note it’s clear that Apple accepted the fight and they’re gonna crush them, this really can only end one way - you cannot successfully offer a service that goes down every couple days because Apple pulled the plug again.
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No surprises here. But this was the end.
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