A reverse assembled solution to implementing iMessage on devices that aren’t made by Apple has stopped working? I’m not surprised… I’d be more surprised if it kept working.
If I was Apple, I would have waited about 10 days. Just long enough for everybody to notice it, download it, and then run out of time on their free trials, cutting off their service right after they pay for the first month.
Right now, it feels like a coin flip about whether Apple is behind it or not. I noticed, when I tested out the app, that it rapidly updated twice over the course of a single day.
$2 a month to use Apple’s server infrastructure*. That’s 24x more expensive than WhatsApp, back when they were still independent and ran all their own servers.
* Beeper technically runs their own push servers, but that’s very minimal and they can even be disabled and not used at all
The product Beeper is selling is essentially access to “blue bubbles” and iMessage without having to pay the price of admission (i.e., owning an iDevice and working with Apple). That’s the part that’s shady and sus. What they are paying or saving on infrastructure cost is irrelevant - they are basically still running a counterfeit operation, doesn’t matter what their costs are.
Now I swear, right before I deleted it, that Beeper Mini had a “use push notifications” switch in its Settings screen. I assumed that would require you to manually open the app every time you really wanted to check.
A reverse assembled solution to implementing iMessage on devices that aren’t made by Apple has stopped working? I’m not surprised… I’d be more surprised if it kept working.
To be fair, I would totally believe Apple changed something small for the sole purpose of breaking iMessage interoperability with Android.
I would be surprised if they didn’t have it ready to go and flipped the switch once they felt it would hurt the apps reputation the most.
If I was Apple, I would have waited about 10 days. Just long enough for everybody to notice it, download it, and then run out of time on their free trials, cutting off their service right after they pay for the first month.
Right now, it feels like a coin flip about whether Apple is behind it or not. I noticed, when I tested out the app, that it rapidly updated twice over the course of a single day.
The tech is pretty interesting but the business is sus…It’s kind of like selling fake admissions to a club and calling that a startup.
$2 a month to use Apple’s server infrastructure*. That’s 24x more expensive than WhatsApp, back when they were still independent and ran all their own servers.
* Beeper technically runs their own push servers, but that’s very minimal and they can even be disabled and not used at all
The product Beeper is selling is essentially access to “blue bubbles” and iMessage without having to pay the price of admission (i.e., owning an iDevice and working with Apple). That’s the part that’s shady and sus. What they are paying or saving on infrastructure cost is irrelevant - they are basically still running a counterfeit operation, doesn’t matter what their costs are.
The push servers are required for beeper Mini, because it acts as a gateway between GCM and ANP.
Beeper Cloud uses Mac Minis, and Beeper posted the software on github so you can self host it.
The two apps work very differently.
Now I swear, right before I deleted it, that Beeper Mini had a “use push notifications” switch in its Settings screen. I assumed that would require you to manually open the app every time you really wanted to check.