A single app to chat on iMessage, WhatsApp, and 13 other chat networks. You can search, snooze, or archive messages. And with a unified inbox, you’ll never miss a message again.
If any of y'all were curious of Beeper when it came out (a Matrix backed chat app) but weren't able to get an invite for whatever reason, then here ya go! Feel free to ask any questions about it if you got any! (No I don't work for Beeper, just like this more than Element and self-hosting)
Privacy policy is vague and when pressed on if he would sell user data along with the service if he sold it, Eric Migicovsky was silent.
He sold Pebble and screwed the workers on the way out.
So how soon does he sell this when it isn't profitable enough for him? What use is a privacy policy if it can be changed by whoever he sells it to?
Also from what I understand if you aren't running your own iMessage bridge and using theirs, technically they have access to your username/password or password hash for the service.
Personal experience: Was on waitlist for over a year. Got an email for onboarding. Told to join zoom call. Zoom call notifies me it will be recorded. There was no previous notification from Beeper that they would be recording onboardings. I declined and hung up the call.
It took them days to reach out and offer a non recorded session. At that point I asked if they would answer privacy related questions and they ignored them. No response. I declined to use their service since.
Personal opinion, with all these sketchy things about Eric Migicovsky and privacy, I'd err on the side of spinning up my own Matrix server and bridges, you know, with blackjack and hookers.
Any company that I have to give my username and password for a third party service (and especially one as important as icloud/imessage) ill take a hard pass.
Beeper does want you to proxy your iCloud account through a Mac on their network for iMessage. You are logging into your iCloud account through their site. They are in effect using Mac minis in a farm to provide the service based on what I looked into (including self hosting it, but then you can’t use a beeper app, you need your own)
I got an invitation the other week and I'm using it for things that are fiddly to maintain a bridge with self hosted Synapse and Mautrix, which I also use.
I was having a look at the phone app and just noticed that it's mostly reskinned Element.
I'd be interested in hearing what their phase 2 is though and perhaps more how it's going to affect individuals.
As in the Underpants Gnomes - what does it do to make a profit? I've since seen they're going to charge $10 a month, which is fine, but from my point of view I run Matrix with the same bridges all ready so don't need it. However, if they're going to make multiple chat applications work in one app with privacy then it's worth supporting.
The source code for the above clients are not available though. Beeper's self-host repo claims that the clients are closed-forks of Element's Android, iOS, Desktop, and Web apps.
However, Beeper's self-host Github repo outlines the steps required to self-host Beeper's web service, which is essentially a Synapse Matrix server, Mautrix bridges, and other bridges/bots/services to help run the Matrix Server and connect the Matrix Server to other services.