Apple Confirms It Shut Down iMessage for Android App Beeper Mini

[CarAnalogy]

Yes you might be right, but I'm not seeing the connection big data could make between myself and my patient other than maybe our phones were in the same geographical location, but so were 50 other people on that day. How do you think your relative's phone knew YOU were doing the search? I don't doubt there is a connection somewhere and I'd be supremely curious to have a data scientist chime in.

May not have just been you. Lots of people may have started getting them. Also you said it’s an unusual diagnosis, some keywords are worth more than others, it may have triggered an aggressive ad campaign.

But for the record I think you’re right, I think there is more nefarious, invasive targeting going on than they admit. Also Bluetooth proximity, UWB, lots of ways to associate your two phones closely together, which is something Facebook at least has quietly admitted to in the past. I know Apple has protections against this, but I also know Facebook has an entire department of people dedicated to hacking the iPhone.

 

[Rafterman]

Security? Bull. It's about their monopoly.

 

[bobcomer]

Not true at all, works without issues on Mountain Lion.

That's good to hear if true, but if what the person I responded to said is true, then I doubt it.

 

[spinedoc77]

May not have just been you. Lots of people may have started getting them. Also you said it’s an unusual diagnosis, some keywords are worth more than others, it may have triggered an aggressive ad campaign.

But for the record I think you’re right, I think there is more nefarious, invasive targeting going on than they admit. Also Bluetooth proximity, UWB, lots of ways to associate your two phones closely together, which is something Facebook at least has quietly admitted to in the past. I know Apple has protections against this, but I also know Facebook has an entire department of people dedicated to hacking the iPhone.

I guess I'm not seeing what a data company would get out of associating our two phones. I interact with 50+ people every day, maybe they think I'm in a rally and everyone has the same tastes/likes. Now if they did that with two phones which were together all the time, I could kind of see that, but two phones between complete strangers?

 

[bobcomer]

Yeah sorry but I’d rather my device just worked- without being open to hacks and phishing like Androids

Your apple device is as vulnerable to phishing as any other device. I get multiple phish attack messages a week on my iphone.

 

[CarAnalogy]

I guess I'm not seeing what a data company would get out of associating our two phones. I interact with 50+ people every day, maybe they think I'm in a rally and everyone has the same tastes/likes. Now if they did that with two phones which were together all the time, I could kind of see that, but two phones between complete strangers?

It’s all automated. They have analyzed every angle of what every shred of metadata could do for them. Costs them nothing to do it. I’m not claiming to know what happened, just saying it sounds suspiciously like that.

 

[rustygh]

I just want interoperability and privacy. It's mad that it costs me £0.60 each time I send a photo to an Android buddy using MMS.

You blaming Apple for this?

Here I am, with a real carrier, and sending both ways, from Android or iPhone back and forth as many times as I want, for fun!
LOL

 

[Any name]

I just want interoperability and privacy. It's mad that it costs me £0.60 each time I send a photo to an Android buddy using MMS.

Use http://signal.org. Free and open source multiplatform message and group videoconferencing application, the signal protocol is the state of the art encryption, copied by WhatsApp and etc.

The centralised service keeps barely any information about you. There’s probably nothing better. I installed my own self-hosted messaging at home and I decided to ditch it and simply recommend signal.

Good luck convincing your friends to use it

 

[heretiq]

Elitism? Some of us just want to engage with a platform that is serious about privacy and security, is that a lot to ask for? What's so wrong about that?

Exactly. If someone doesn’t like Apple’s stance of prioritizing privacy and security over expanded functionality, customization and interoperability, they can just choose one of the many alternatives. I don’t understand why some of these individuals choose to insist on Apple changing their principles and products then resort to name calling when others disagree with them.

 

[MrRom92]

As a iPhone user, who has android family members, it’s more about how SMS is terrible for group chats, especially with large family, and low resolution photos and videos.

I hope RCS will fix that, but that is still a hope and hasn’t seen the light of day yet. Apple could have adopted RCS years ago to avoid this whole issue, and improve messaging for its own users, but it chose not to.

It’s not the color of bubble people are concerned about, it’s the capabilities that people want.

For us grown ups the “blue bubble” thing doesn’t matter very much. For teenagers it’s a horrible thing. The discrimination that results from not being able to communicate with a blue bubble is rampant, Apple knows is and they do nothing against it.

The problem with hacky workarounds like these, is that you still don’t get the enhanced communication features of iMessage. Maybe some, in some diminished capacity. But not nearly all. The iPhone owner still can’t expect to interact with this person on the same level which they can already expect to interact with anyone else.

At the end of the day you are typing into a bot that is communicating via iMessage for you as a proxy. Not only is this just lame, simple as that, but there are pretty serious security implications for both participants of any conversation in which someone is using something like this. All so that you can change the color of a bubble on someone else’s screen and effectively achieve nothing else.

These services should not exist.

 

[laptech]

Apple will throw the 'security and privacy' card out when it wants to prevent someone or some company from using Apple services and/or resources. Right to Repair, Apple kept using the word 'security' as a way to get Right to Repair thrown out. A company finds a way for Android users to text message iphone users using imessage. Apple jumps in with 'security and privacy' and put's a stop to it.

 

[Treq]

If it costs him £0.60 then he's in the UK which is no longer part of the EU and thus not subject to their regulation regime.

Oops, saw the pound symbol and my brain said "Europe" then went to the EU regulations. Thanks for the correction. Still, 0.60 per text is a lot in either pounds, euros, or dollars. They really should be doing something about that.

 

[assb10yr]

I don’t make friends with people who own Android phones. Also almost all Android devs use iPhone for their personal use.

 

[BaldiMac]

Apple will throw the 'security and privacy' card out when it wants to prevent someone or some company from using Apple services and/or resources. Right to Repair, Apple kept using the word 'security' as a way to get Right to Repair thrown out. A company finds a way for Android users to text message iphone users using imessage. Apple jumps in with 'security and privacy' and put's a stop to it.

What’s your point? There are certainly real security concerns about both of these topics. I’d certainly expect Apple to “jump in with” them.

 

[Homme]

You blaming Apple for this?

Here I am, with a real carrier, and sending both ways, from Android or iPhone back and forth as many times as I want, for fun!
LOL

Exactly, there’s WhatsApp/Signal etc

Heck Facebook just recently announced that Messenger will get the encrypted treatment very soon and yep you can customize your messenger chats to get the “blue bubble” feeling alongside the encryption (when it comes out)

But nooooo people have to use MMS ( which is far outdated than anything encrypted/RCS) and paying 60 cents over WhatsApp which transfers photos/videos much faster than other platforms, omg lol

 

[acctman]

The last thing I want on iMessages is spam. Good for Apple for this

 

[mikeschr]

Really think “it” should be lowercase

Actually, I'd like it to be "they" when referring to a group of people like Apple, but American singular/plurals are weird.
For most versions of Title Case, articles, conjunctions and prepositions that are part of a prepositional phrase are lowercase. "It" is none of those, so it's capitalized.

 

[JosephAW]

Translation: Apple blocked some ip addresses.

 

[coolfactor]

throw timmy in jail until he stops being so anticompetitive.

Are you also wanting A&W to make Big Macs?

iMessage is not anticompetitive when the market is *filled* with competitive alternatives.

 

[JosephAW]

Apple: How about updating iMessage on older devices then.

 

[coolfactor]

Actually, I'd like it to be "they" when referring to a group of people like Apple, but American singular/plurals are weird.
For most versions of Title Case, articles, conjunctions and prepositions that are part of a prepositional phrase are lowercase. "It" is none of those, so it's capitalized.

When referring to a company, both "it" and "they" are valid. Depends how you're referring to them, or it.

• It = one company, "the company".
• They = the people that make up the company.

Both are valid. Context matter.

 

[coolfactor]

I agree, but on the other hand I strongly disagree with them locking down iMessage like this in the first place. Beeper Mini did not have malicious intentions.

Surely there should be a way to provide a hardware key from any other device and log in using it. Surely, someone who owns an Apple device should at the very least be able to authenticate an iMessage system on a 3rd party device.

They say it's about spam - I don't believe that. The amount of spam even in Discord is as small as it is on iMessage. I'm not buying it.

PS: Also, I should note that the exploit they were using wasn't new. I used it for a Hackintosh over 10 years ago. They certainly did know about it for a long, long time. The only reason they did this was to kill Beeper, not because of the security breach. Don't kid yourselves.

Their concerns around spam are directly tied to the untrustworthiness of the Android platform across all versions and devices.

Might be rock solid on the latest Pixel devices, but some cheapo phone from Asia running an older version might be full of compromises.

There is no "one" Android.

 

[mikeschr]

When referring to a company, both "it" and "they" are valid. Depends how you're referring to them, or it.

• It = one company, "the company".
• They = the people that make up the company.

Both are valid. Context matter.

I do realize that. I just like "they" better for this.

 

[Ludatyk]

I don’t think monetization is the reason that Beeper got shutdown.

It’s absolutely the reason it got shut down… Think of it this way, imagine if AirMessage or BlueBubbles made millions off using iMessage on Android. You telling me that Apple wouldn’t have stepped in?

Beeper made it to #2 in communication category within 2 days and had 100k+ downloads… they was planning on making a huge sum of money. It’s not about some hack or security issue… it’s about Beeper attaching money onto this project.

 

[lartola]

So people with old Mac with Mountain Lion can no longer register with iMessage (or use iMessage?) Way to go Apple -- now that I'm mad about.

They still can. Apple only blocked the fake serial numbers, not the real ones.