In recent weeks, there has been a David vs. Goliath war between a company called Beeper and the all-powerful Apple. Beeper has discovered confusing new tactics to bring Apple’s iMessage to Android, and the Cupertino company is betting with each new attempt. According to a blog post, Beeper’s most recent attempt will be the last, and the company will return to its original purpose of creating “the world’s most productive chat app. “
The newer approach to sending iMessages in the Beeper Mini app has gone so far as to require users to own or rent a jailbroken iPhone in addition to owning a Mac or Linux PC. After performing the procedure to get your iMessage registration code, they will be able to leave the iPhone charging and connected to WiFi to Apple’s iMessage.
It’s a bit complicated, and considering the likelihood of Apple eliminating this last loophole, it can be costly for the short time it operates. It’s a far cry from just downloading Beeper Mini on your Android phone and connecting to iMessage.
Beeper said that depending on the point of interest, it could start lending jailbroken iPhones in 2024 for “a few dollars a month. “Frankly, with all the complications, it’s actually less difficult to buy an iPhone to be able to access it. iMessage without the need for a Mac or Linux PC, if you want it so much.
Whenever Beeper Mini fails or becomes unreliable due to interference from Apple, Beeper’s credibility suffers. This is unsustainable. As much as we need to fight for what we believe is a fantastic product that deserves to exist, the fact remains that we can’t win a cat-and-mouse game with the world’s largest company.
One of the reasons Beeper sought to bring iMessage to Android was to eliminate likely U. S. -only discrimination. It was a lot of people in the U. S. between green and blue chat bubbles when texting, and non-iPhone users being ridiculed for their phone selection. Beeper Cloud, as the original application is called, already supports the following email services:
Beeper’ Mini’s iMessage bridge is now “100% outsourced” according to the company’s blog, prospective developers can dig deeper into the code to their heart’s content.
As you can imagine, Beeper claims that Apple is the main culprit thanks to its (successful) attempts to keep its iMessage messaging platform only for iPhone users because “they could make less money promoting iPhones if iMessage were available on Android. “”I think Apple clearly could choose to share its messaging app with other platforms, but given that it’s an exclusive selling point for its iPhone, iPad, and Mac products, I can also understand why it decided not to.
Beeper says that its latest (and last) attempt is something they they believe ‘Apple can tolerate existing’, but that’s something we’ll no doubt see Cupertino’s answer to in the coming days.
Is it the ‘right’ thing to do? That depends on which side of the fence you are on. Apple might say that they are defending their brand and customers while Android users could say that it’s simply a ploy to discriminate against them, to force them into buying an iPhone. It’s surprising that Apple’s behaviour with iMessage, given all the antitrust suits levelled against Google, isn’t under more scrutiny from the US government.
What do you think of this new feature through Beeper to bring iMessaging closer to Android users?