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Desktops (Apple) Apple

Next Beeper Mini Fix Requires Users To Have a Mac (macrumors.com) 64

Posted by BeauHD from the more-hoops-to-jump-through dept.
Juli Clover reports via MacRumors: The developers behind Beeper Mini are continuing with their effort to make iMessage for Android function despite Apple's mitigations, and the latest "fix" requires Beeper Mini users to have access to a Mac. On Reddit, the Beeper Mini team says that the Mac-based fix coming on December 20 stabilizes iMessage for Beeper Cloud and Mini, and it "works well" and "is very reliable."

It is unclear how many Android users have a Mac or have a friend with a Mac to rely on, but the fix requires using a Mac to connect to iMessage on Beeper. According to Beeper Mini's developers, registration data from an actual Mac has to be sent to Apple to use iMessage on Beeper. Beeper has been using its own Mac servers to provide that information to Apple, but that resulted in thousands of Beeper users having the same registration info, which was an "easy target for Apple."

The Beeper update will instead generate unique registration data for each Mac, making it harder for Apple to tell which users are accessing iMessage through an Android device. The Beeper Mini team says that registration data is "only used to indicate that a Mac is available during registration" and that the Mac will not be given access to an account or messages: "If you do not have access to a Mac computer, but have a friend on Beeper with a Mac, you can ask them if you can use their registration data. In our testing, 10-20 iMessage users can safely use the same registration data." With the fix, Beeper Cloud and Beeper Mini users will once again be able to use iMessage on Android, but only with email addresses and not with phone numbers.
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Next Beeper Mini Fix Requires Users To Have a Mac More

Next Beeper Mini Fix Requires Users To Have a Mac

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  • How many (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Valgrus Thunderaxe ( 8769977 ) on Tuesday December 19, 2023 @07:48PM (#64092055)
    Mac owners use Android phones?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Narcocide ( 102829 )

      A valid question, but note that lots of people use Macs at work that they do not own, irrespective of their preference for phone vendors.

    • Re:How many (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Known Nutter ( 988758 ) on Tuesday December 19, 2023 @08:18PM (#64092103)

      Mac owners use Android phones?

      Yeah, sure. At home, I am Mac on the workstation, linux or bsd on the servers, windows in a VM or 2, Android on mobile. At work, Windows for the workstation, iPhone for mobile, Google Workspace for collaboration.

    • In the words of Dean Wormer "Zero. Point. Zero."

    • I have a mac mini at work. And it can authorize up to 20 accounts per mac. So that means up to 20 people could use it in the background automated once every few weeks to refresh our tokens.

      • If you can just install anything you want that is not work related is it really a work laptop or is it an unmanaged back door into your work?

    • Re:How many (Score:4, Informative)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <slashdot@worf.ERDOSnet minus math_god> on Wednesday December 20, 2023 @12:51AM (#64092573)

      Mac owners use Android phones?

      Which in the end is fine, but if you already have access to a Mac, you have access to real iMessage. And there are more than a few iMessage on Mac to Android gateway apps out there that simply relay between your Mac and Android phone. And this is a legitimate way to do it - if you already own a Mac why bother with Beeper?

      I mean, you have a Mac, you can use BlueBubbles - https://bluebubbles.app/ [bluebubbles.app]
      or AirMessage - https://airmessage.org/ [airmessage.org]

      All of these just relay the iMessage from the Mac to your Android device. No hacks required, Apple can't shut them down (it appears as if you're using a Mac, because you are), and they've been around far longer.

      And if Apple decides to make iMessage unreliable to Beeper users, well, it won't work with BlueBubbles or AirMessage without Apple examining your apps.

    • I have one shit machine at work to test software on, so we can support people with shit preferences.

      • Just to make sure. Which product are you testing? I wouldnâ(TM)t want to make the mistake to buy from a company whose shit employee thinks Iâ(TM)m making shit choices.

    • Mac owners use Android phones?

      *Teachers have entered the chat* - My wife really hates her mac passionately. But I suppose if she wanted to use Beeper she could use her work laptop to get this working.

      Also you don't need to use *your own* mac. Some of us don't participate in class warfare and actually do have friends who are mac users despite their poor life choices ;-)

    • Yes.
      Or do you think every Android app is ported to iOS?
      How do you code for Android? Obviously you use a Mac or Linux ...

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by stedlj ( 62084 )

      And how many Android users even care to use iMessage? I highly doubt it will be enough to make them money.

  • What is the point really by then? Why not just, I dunno, use some kind of remote screen viewer to use ALL of your Mac that's sitting turned on back at home while you're on the bus?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Nebulo ( 29412 )

      The details matter here: you only need a bit of iMessage "registration data" from a Mac. Once you've gotten this, you don't need the Mac anymore.

      • Seems like it has potential for a paid "short term Mac rental" service. Sorta like using a PC at the library.

      • How long will that last before Apple make a change so that that Mac (or another Apple device) is required periodically?

        This just doesn't seem to be a sustainable or realistic approach.

  • They're persistent, aren't they? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ratbag ( 65209 ) on Tuesday December 19, 2023 @08:28PM (#64092121)

    They've got moxie, I'll give them that. They'll not succeed, but ten out of ten for effort.

    • They've got moxie, I'll give them that. They'll not succeed, but ten out of ten for effort.

      Absolutely. Let Apple keep swatting at the pesky mosquitoes till one day they get malaria.

  • Future related news headline ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Tuesday December 19, 2023 @08:35PM (#64092129)

    Next Beeper Mini Fix Requires Users To Have a Mac

    Next Beeper Mini Fix Requires Users to Have an iPhone

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by necro81 ( 917438 )

      Next Beeper Mini Fix Requires Users to Have an iPhone

      Next Beeper Mini Fix Requires Users to Have a Beeper.

  • It's kind of bizarre (Score:5, Insightful)

    by aardvarkjoe ( 156801 ) on Tuesday December 19, 2023 @08:43PM (#64092145)

    It's kind of bizarre how they have convinced anyone to believe that this project will ultimately be successful. Apple is dead set against interoperability, and any time you find a hole in the methods they have to detect a non-official client, they'll be able to plug the hole in short order.

    In the end all you're doing is helping them find and close the holes in their walled garden.

    • It's like in the movies when the bad guys beat the hero down, but he keeps getting back up ... only to get beaten down again. Obviously the hero doesn't benefit from getting beaten up, but he's not doing it for himself: he's doing it to expose the hypocrisy of the bad guys.

      Similarly here, the beeper folks might never win this war, but they can still achieve a pyrrhic victory if their actions lead to an anti-trust case against Apple.

      • I've come to a decision that I must not know any Americans in America. I live in America and work in America and I exclusively use android products. I've never used iMessage.

        • Sorry that was a brain fart. I exclusively use apple products and have never used iMessage. I've never noticed any problems with communication. Who are these people?

    • Instant Messenger (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The same cat and mouse game happened with Instant Messengers in the 90s, but in the end they did all become easily supported by third party clients. Users wanted it bad enough and kept seeking it out and supporting the efforts.

    • Apple may be facing a losing battle. Pretty much anything short of hardware attestation can be cloned in some way or another, and I doubt they have anything like that configured. They should be able to do it with the TPM on macs, but that assumes that all of the ones still supported have a new enough version of it. And of course, old ones will need to lose access. On the other hand, Apple doesn't seem to have ever been bothered by that kind of thing, and iDerps are always more than happy to fund Apple's pla

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by stooo ( 2202012 )

      >> Apple is dead set against interoperability
      When you make a communication app, you should be able to communicate with everybody, not with 10% of the population only.

      >> In the end all you're doing is helping them find and close the holes in their walled garden.
      Not only. We also make it clear that walled garden captive users still need communications to the outside world.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      It's kind of bizarre how they have convinced anyone to believe that this project will ultimately be successful. Apple is dead set against interoperability, and any time you find a hole in the methods they have to detect a non-official client, they'll be able to plug the hole in short order.

      In the end all you're doing is helping them find and close the holes in their walled garden.

      You say that as if it were a bad thing. All you're doing is pointing out that a gilded cage is still a cage to the people inside it.

      Apple is already in the position of losing users each year as fewer people are switching from Android to Apple than are going in the other direction, most of their new phones are already bought by people who already have an Apple phone. The more they tighten their grip, the more will slip through their fingers.

      Whilst trying to drive a wedge between Apple and Android users

    • It's a 16yo, and I suspect this cat and mouse will be presented in one of the many venues that are looking into Apple's specific refusal of interoperability.

      Kid's doing good work, here. Every time they change something to prevent interop, the case for regulating Apple improves a bit, IMO.

  • I am an android user with a mac (Score:3)

    by williamyf ( 227051 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2023 @05:04AM (#64092827)

    Or more exactly, a mac user (2009) on Android (2017).

    It derives from my need for a PKB on my phones (light essential tremor https://essentialtremor.org/ [essentialtremor.org] ).

    Having said that, I never feelt the need if having iMessage on my phone. Arround these latitudes WhatsApp is king, and SMS/MMS is queen.

    I can undesrstand the need to put SMSs on a blue bubble instead of green (as a matter of fact, I'd use red myself). I used to be into O&M of the SMS servers at a telco, and the insecurity of SMS/MMS is pretty scary. Whatever encryption you get in the air is weak, and at the core is non-existent.

    In some platforms, even the billing records keep the SMS content, form a few characters, all the way to the whole message, for all to see, not only the operators of the SMS platform themselves, but also those of the Billing and Prepaid platforms as well...

    So, good for apple, good for Beeper, bad for SMS encryption

    PS: Please, do not sugest ways to try to make an all-glass phone work with Essential tremor without clicking the link first.
    PS2: I tried most of them anyway, to no avail. So, again, please, do not sugest ways to make an all-glass phone work with essential tremor.

    • Your essential tremor must not be light. I have an essential tremor in my hands. I can't thread needles, I struggle to drink from a glass with one hand, and I've even had my car searched once because "You look nervous". My left hand is worse than my right to the point that drive throughs scare me if I need to order a beverage so I just go in the store. I've tried primidone, beta blockers, and benzos without any relief.

      I use an iPhone without issue. I'm really sorry your problem is that bad.

  • iPhone/Android phones can text now. ???? lol

  • Why? (Score:2)

    by Holi ( 250190 )

    All this so your text is in a different color bubble.

  • I can send SMS messages to iPhones just fine. I'm too lazy to figure out what imessage is. Certainly too lazy to try and use it or beeper or whatever.

    Damn. I just realized I am now officially old and cranky.

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