I’m going to have to side with Apple here (and I think I just threw up a bit in my mouth). iMessage is a service that they provide, and they’re well within their rights to restrict access to paying customers. iPhone users pay for it when they buy their latest shiny object; users of other brand devices don’t.
If you really want iMessage that desperately, buy an iPhone. That’s not worth it to you? That’s fine, but you can’t have it both ways.
At this point at the latest it would be much easier (not to mention more reliable) to get your iPhone-owning friends or family to use another messenger that’s not restricted to one single manufacturer. There are several apps that offer more features and more privacy than iMessage and are officially supported (not relying on unofficial hacks) on every modern smartphone.
There are several apps that offer more features and more privacy than iMessage and are officially supported (not relying on unofficial hacks) on every modern smartphone.
Like Signal and Element X, right?
I didn’t even know about Element X.
Personally I use Threema (one-time app fee) and Signal (effectively donationware).There’s of course also WhatsApp, Telegram, SnapChat, (Facebook) Messenger, Instagram, … if the size of the user base is more important to you than privacy.
All of these encourage you to use them, as opposed to iMessage that will actively try to keep you away from it unless you buy the right kind of hardware. So why the hassle?
I am SHOCKED that apple isn’t playing fair with the app that reverse engineered a backdoor into their system and is now profiting from it. I thought they would have just loved that idea
They’re playing perfectly fair.
They don’t owe anyone continued exploit access.
Not the original commenter, but that looked like sarcasm to me.
It’s definitely full of sarcasm. But playing fair buried in that sentence is still implying that they don’t have an explicit obligation to close the hole.
Yeah I dont understand how people expected this to stay open when apple has to do so little in order to break it.
Like google for whatever reason is thankfully not actively trying to break front ends, but newpipe still breaks every once in a while when they update something. The same goes for a lot of other front end services and third party apps.
Fix for Beeper Cloud is done, rolling out patch to all users now (3.5 hours remaining til everyone is fixed). No need to contact Beeper Help regarding this issue.
Testing fix for Mini now. Will require app update.
We realize how incredibly inconvenient this is for you. It’s super annoying that Apple is penalizing their own customers and Android users who just want secure and encrypted chats.
We understand if you choose to disable the iMessage bridge at this time. We’ll try to stabilize this and get you back in future.
- Eric Migicovsky (Beeper Founder)
As they should. Good for them!
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It wasn’t the resulting lower-quality images, loss of encryption, and strange “Emphasized your message” reaction texts.
There was a gathering on Saturday, and she had to double-check with a couple people about the details after showing up inadvertently early at the wrong spot.
Migicovsky pointed to Epic’s victory at trial against Google’s Play Store (“big tech”) as motivation.
Citing privacy, security, and spam concerns, Apple stated it would “continue to make updates in the future” to protect users.
I asked Migicovsky by direct message if, given Apple’s stated plan to continually block it, there could ever be a point at which Beeper’s access was “settled,” or “back up and running,” as he put it in his post on X (formerly Twitter).
“Us,” he clarified, meant both Apple’s customers using iMessage and Android users trying to chat securely with iPhone friends.
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