Technology @lemmy.ml Apollo2323 @lemmy.dbzer0.com 12mo ago

Another app for Android to implement iMessage.

blog.beeper.com Meet Beeper Mini - Finally, get blue bubbles on Android 💙

🎉 We’re thrilled to launch Beeper Mini: our beautiful new Android app to message with iPhones as a legit blue bubble. Download it today on Google Play! No waitlist, no ads ever, and free for 7 days.

All messages are end to end encrypted. Also you don't need an Apple account and it connects directly to Apple servers.

Technology @kbin.social bradboimler @kbin.social 12mo ago

Meet Beeper Mini - Finally, get blue bubbles on Android 💙

blog.beeper.com /p/introducing-beeper-mini-get-blue

40 comments

Their "how it works" blog article is worth a read - they're using a blackbox reverse engineering of the protocol and re-implementing it natively in the app, so there are no man-in-the-middle servers. Impressive software engineering for sure.
- The tech is called PyPush and was developed by a teenager and purchased by Beeper.
- For sure very interesting! And its open source and you can run it in your computer if you have the knowledge.
  
  Yup, the PyPush python-based proof-of-concept can run pretty much anywhere there's python.
  
  I'm aware regular Beeper can be self-hosted, but Beeper Mini can too? Is there any more information on this or is that the "if you have the knowledge" part?
- huh, interesting. so from a security perspective is there any other concern with this protocol? at least they're not using a mac relay server like Nothing Chats was
  
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I'm not American and I don't see how having iMessage on Android is worth the $2 monthly.

In my whole life I never knew a single person that was reachable only on iMessage or that was so stubborn to ignore messages on any other platform
- Yeah but that's how it is here in America , I love my Android and will never change so I guess I am stubborn too.
The first thing it asks you for when you open the app is a Google login. That's gonna be a no from me, dawg.
- Google login + $2 monthly? Screw that.
But why the obsession with iMessage and apple product?!? We don’t care about the colour of the bubble!!!
- Apparently American teenagers do and will straight up bully you if you have an Android.
  
  If only it was just teenagers, physically grown ass men and women do this too. Have had some I thought were good friends cut me off from talking to them "because I didn't have an iPhone".
  
  Placating them doesn't look like a great solution to me.
  
  Sounds like a pretty great litmus test of a person's character
- Network effect. Gradually over time my whole extended family wound up with iphones for one reason or another, and Android phones would consistently break our group threads. The last few holdouts (not ideologically, they just didn't need new phones) wound up switching to Apple afterwards to make everything smoother for the rest of us.
- iMessage group chats.
- You do realize iMessage is more than just colored bubbles, right?
A lot of work, data scrapping and security issue just for a pin ?

Seriously ?

What the point, except to simulate the possession of an iPhone to someone who should be a stranger for you or at least physically far from you ?

I clearly don't get it.

Scam interest after a sim swapping attacks ? The goal, need to know it !!
- I take it you're not from the US 😅 texting is still the default here, and since apple refuses to open up iMessage and has not yet implemented RCS, Cross-Platform communication is pretty shitty. People get excluded from group chats because even a single user on a different platform will set it back to MMS
  
  Yeah I've been excluded from work group chats on two separate occasions because they used iMessage and considering another platform was just entirely off the table.
  
  Although to be honest, I consider being excluded from work group chats to be one of the best features of my phone!
- iMessage is pretty great to use honestly. Supports encryption, Tapbacks, read receipts, sharing any file type (not just pictures and video). RCS isn’t implemented in iOS yet and on launch won’t support encryption (supposedly Google is working to add it to the RCS standard, not just Google’s fork, now that Apple announced future support for the standard).

40 comments