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Pebble Founder Says His New App Brings iMessage To Android With a Little 'Trickery' (gizmodo.com) 57

Posted by BeauHD from the what-would-you-do-for-the-blue-bubble dept.
Beeper is a forthcoming app from the founder of Pebble that claims to be a hub for all your messaging services, including support for iMessage on Android. Gizmodo reports: Instead of managing half a dozen apps for keeping in touch with friends, family, and co-workers, Beeper allows you to funnel everything to one interface. According to its website, the app supports 14 external messaging platforms as well as its own Beeper network. But the company's claim that it brings iMessage to Android, Windows, or Linux devices could be a killer feature for anyone who's suffered through the embarrassment of the green bubble.

Apple likes to keep its in-house products exclusive to its own hardware, so this claim is a bit surprising, but Beeper says it's figured out a workaround. On its website, it explains: "Beeper has two ways of enabling Android, Windows and Linux users to use iMessage: we send each user a Jailbroken iPhone with the Beeper app installed which bridges to iMessage, or if they have a Mac that is always connected to the internet, they can install the Beeper Mac app which acts as a bridge. This is not a joke, it really works!"

Okay, the part about using an always-connected Mac as a bridge is not unprecedented, but the idea of sending users jailbroken upcycled iPhones is a little bonkers. Eric Migicovsky, founder of the Pebble smartwatch company and partner at Beeper, took to Twitter to insist that the jailbreak plan is legit and that he currently has 50 iPhone 4s ready for the task. In an update, Migicovsky tells Gizmodo that "Beeper encrypts all messages on the client before they reach our servers. We cannot decrypt any message contents."

The services compatible with Beeper include: Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, iMessage, Android Messages (SMS), Telegram, Twitter, Slack, Hangouts, Instagram, Skype, IRC, Matrix, Discord, Signal, and Beeper network.
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Pebble Founder Says His New App Brings iMessage To Android With a Little 'Trickery' More

Pebble Founder Says His New App Brings iMessage To Android With a Little 'Trickery'

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  • It requires Apple hardware which is a non-starter. Just get your Apple acquaintances to use a cross platform messenger or use SMS.

    • Just get your Apple acquaintances to use a cross platform messenger

      Yeah, my head isn't up my ass far enough to think that everyone around me must accommodate me.

      or use SMS.

      which is what everyone is basically doing, and it sucks. Thus, the company in the article trying to do this hacky bullshit. And it's all caused by Apple and their proprietary crap.

  • Alright, who carried a beeper around back in the day?

    C'mon now. Don't be afraid, former drug dealers. The statue of limitations has surely worn thinner than the excuse to keep those stinky Miami Vice loafers...

  • it is a lot easier to just stop communicating with people who don't use iMessage

    • You misspelled "who *do* use iMessage".

      Seriously, who still uses such primitive, insecure messengers?
      Are you still sending (i)Faxes too?

    • it is a lot easier to just stop communicating with people who don't use iMessage

      Two things: I would do anything to stop having my entire text messages sent back to me every time the recipient "likes" it

      What do you mean it's easier to stop communicating with people who don't use iMessage? This would put the burden on those people, not you.

      • it is a lot easier to just stop communicating with people who don't use iMessage

        Two things: I would do anything to stop having my entire text messages sent back to me every time the recipient "likes" it

        Worse is when a picture is liked. You get a notification that a picture was liked but not which one. They can even like a photo from a month ago and you'll get the same generic message.

        My fiancée's entire family is apple based and the annoyance really makes it tempting to switch. I use enough non-app store apps to make that a difficult transition, though.

        That said, the solution to buy an iphone or mac and use it as a bridge has already been done.

    • Yeah, some of us aren't narcissist assholes who think it's a good idea to shun friends and family for having the audacity to buy the phone they prefer, for whatever reasons they used to make their purchase.

  • "But the company's claim that it brings iMessage to Android, Windows, or Linux devices could be a killer feature for anyone who's suffered through the embarrassment of the green bubble. "

    you would suffer embarrassment for a green bubble. I would say the embarrassment is that you bought a phone that you don't even own. The saddest part of this whole article is how broken technology is. The fact that your phone can't send me an private (encrypted) message in 2021 is sad. The fact that I would need a product t

    • I would say the embarrassment is that you bought a phone that you don't even own.

      Most Android phones have locked bootloaders, and Google basically compromises the hell out of your privacy because they are first and foremost, an advertising company.

      It’s the nature of the beast with smartphones. One way or another, the device isn’t going to completely obey your wishes. Either they’ll place limitations on what you’re allowed to do, or it will do things you don’t want it doing.

      I suppose you could buy one of those phones based on horribly outdated technology t

  • WUPHF! (.com) https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • There is alredy on single messnger for everyone. It's called Signal.
    Don't like something about it? Fork it. Federation means you can still chat with other Signal clients.

    • Signal is useless as long as it requires a phone number to make an account.

    • There is alredy on single messnger for everyone. It's called Signal.

      Nobody I communicate with uses Signal. Chances are, you might be able to say the same thing about either iMessage, FB messenger, or Telegram (which are the messaging platforms I do use).

      That’s the entire problem with all these competing messaging platforms. I’m not installing yet another app just to communicate with one person, and a lot of people feel the same way. As I’ve said in previous posts on the matter, what I’d like to see is Google and Apple forced to work together.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Unfortunately Signal is neither a good option nor easy to fork.

      https://drewdevault.com/2018/0... [drewdevault.com]

      TL;DR there are some serious security issues with Signal and Moxie has gone out of his way to make sure you can't really fork it, because any fork won't be able to communicate with other Signal users. It's not an open platform, to work it needs servers controlled by Moxie that block all other clients.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Ryan from the Office already made this.
    WOOF!

  • fuck off shithead. People supported your expensive trinkets and when you went under, mostly because of dumb marketing and design compromise, you spat on your customers and instead of providing them with software to keep their shit working, you sold them out to another shitty consumer data sinkhole. Now please STFU and DIAF.

  • Article doesnt say why messages cant be re-encrypted for the final jump ...

  • So like Trillian then? (Score:3)

    by slasher999 ( 513533 ) on Friday January 22, 2021 @01:03AM (#60976964)

    In spirit anyhow. Trillian was pretty amazing back in the day for consolidating all of the old IM apps into one UI.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jonwil ( 467024 )

      Miranda (open source) was/is better on that, it didn't have all the crappiness of Trillian :)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by aitikin ( 909209 )

        Miranda (open source) was/is better on that, it didn't have all the crappiness of Trillian :)

        I preferred Adium (GAIM/Pidgin when I was off OS X).

  • Yeesh (Score:3)

    by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Friday January 22, 2021 @02:03AM (#60977014)

    >"Instead of managing half a dozen apps for keeping in touch with friends, family, and co-workers, Beeper allows you to funnel everything to one interface."

    Sorry, but if you can't figure out how to send me an Email, or use standard SMS, then you don't need to contact me. And if you can't receive an Email or SMS, then you are broken.

    >"could be a killer feature for anyone who's suffered through the embarrassment of the green bubble."

    I have no idea what a "green bubble" is, but it sounds like being a very shallow person. Communication isn't a fashion statement.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The point is not that people can't accept email or SMS, it's that telling people "sorry no WhatsApp, WeChat, Telegram, Twitter, Facebook or iMessage, you must email" is a shitty way to run a business.

      So you want all of them, but each has a separate app. To make the workflow more efficient a single app that handles them all is called for.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Rhipf ( 525263 )

        The point is not that people can't accept email or SMS, it's that telling people "sorry no WhatsApp, WeChat, Telegram, Twitter, Facebook or iMessage, you must email" is a shitty way to run a business.

        That is no worse of a way to do business than those businesses that say you must have WhatsApp, WeChat, Telegram, Twitter, Facebook or iMessage in order to get service from them. In fact I think it is actually better if you say you must have email since email is a universal platform. Anyone can get an email address and probably >95% of Internet users already have one.

  • Eric Migicovsky [...] took to Twitter to insist that the jailbreak plan is legit and that he currently has 50 iPhone 4s ready for the task.

    Oh wow, he has 50 iPhone 4s ready for the task! But what about your other 9950+ potential customers?

  • Even Apple with all their pile of money can't ignore the Android market. As they continue to diversify their revenue, it shouldn't take that long for iMessage to be bundled along with TV and Music in some sort of subscription for non-iDevice users.
    • No if they let others use apple services many people will slowly move to android

    • I have no idea why you're making this claim. Why can't they ignore the Android market? All signs point to this last quarter being a record-breaker for them, with revenue over $100 Billion.

      They've made a business out of specifically ignoring Android users, what's going to make them change their minds now?

      Indeed, everyone should ignore SMS to whatever extent possible that they can. It's anachronistic tech, and we've got better chat clients now.

  • They will block all the devices and their ids,and they will say it is aginst the terms

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      For about a year MSN Messenger could communicate with AOL's AIM messaging users, to Eh?OhHell's great distress. They changed their AIM software several times and MS would just adapt their communications protocols and it would work again. Finally lawyers got involved and that game stopped.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cdwiegand ( 2267 )

      Well it goes through a Mac or an Apple device, and people have been doing this for a few years, this isn't the first method that has some spread. As long as you're going through their real hardware, they still made their money, they probably don't care. They won't enable it, but they don't have a financial reason to block it - you still bought Apple hardware.

  • Who would want to use such tools ?? Eliminating centralized services be they from FB, Google, Apple or whoever is a sane practice.
    Federation is the answer to censorship, and Matrix [matrix.org] , which is a decentralized and secure protocol powers Element.io [element.io] chat which is way better and secure than anything else, and guess it, it already works on every platform... Cherry on the cake it supports ActivityPub [wikipedia.org] to interact with the rest of the Fediverse...
  • > According to its website, the app supports 14 external messaging platforms as well as its own Beeper network. 14 competing standards?!? Reminds me of something... https://xkcd.com/927/ [xkcd.com]

  • Man, the 90s really are coming back around. I hadn't thought about ICQ in years

  • Pebble is behind the times. WUPHF, based out of Scranton, PA and pronounced "woof," has been around for years.

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