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Beeper Mini is back after Apple shutdown, but had to sacrifice its main appeal
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The saga of Beeper Mini continues as the developer behind it relaunched the app, although it comes at the cost of one of its main features.

To give you a crash course of recent events, Beeper Mini is an Android app that gives users the ability to send and receive texts using the iMessage protocol. Apple eventually found out about it then proceeded to block the service, claiming it posed “significant risks” to user safety. On December 11, Beeper the company managed to restore connectivity, however, people must now sign in with their AppleID credentials whereas before all you had to enter was the phone number of your Android smartphone. 

This ease of use was especially appealing since you weren’t forced to add or create another login. According to Beeper’s post, texts will instead be exchanged through the email address listed on your AppleID. This won’t be nearly as convenient as TheVerge points out, but at least people can still communicate with iMessage.

Working things out

There are plans to restore phone number registration later down the line although no word when the feature will come back. To make up for the downscaling, Beeper Mini will now be free moving forward until the day comes when things stabilize. At that point, Beeper may reintroduce the monthly fee. You can keep the $ 2 subscription turned on as a way to support Beeper during these times, but it’s not a requirement.

The company states in its blog post it will remain committed to ensuring Beeper Mini becomes a successful service on Android. Apple is obviously the biggest obstacle to achieving this goal, so Beeper had decided to extend an olive branch to the tech giant by making two commitments.

One: if Apple truly believes Beeper Mini is a danger to iOS user safety, the developer says it will share the app’s entire codebase “with a mutually agreed upon third-party security research firm.” Two, at Apple's insistence, Beeper might consider “adding a pager emoji” to the metadata on all messages coming from their app. The purpose of the emoji is to make it easier for iMessages to filter out texts coming from Beeper Mini.

Mounting pressure

Now the question is will Apple leave the service alone? It’s hard to say. Apple certainly isn’t afraid to bring down the hammer despite pressure from other corporations and governing groups. That said, Apple isn’t inflexible. Hell froze over back in mid-November when it finally decided to support the RCS protocol from Android phones. Plus this whole situation caught the eye of the US government. Senator Elizabeth Warren on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) called for Apple to allow Beeper Mini to exist.

She recognizes the fact that the “green bubble texts [from Android] are less secure”, putting forth the idea of expanding the security measures as well as making communication between the two platforms easier to do.

The updated Beeper Mini is currently available for download on the Google Play Store. We reached out to the developer on X asking if it could give us a timeframe for the release of future fixes plus what it hopes to achieve by sharing the codebase. This story will be updated at a later time. 

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Apple kneecaps the latest Android iMessage app, but Beeper vows to stumble on
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It's been quite the week for Beeper Mini, the new Android app that promises to bring full iMessage functionality to Android. Having launched a few days ago, with the hope of FaceTime calls in the future, it's now been blocked by Apple – though the Beeper Mini team is promising to restore functionality.

Beeper Mini does something that hasn't been done before: it actually reverse engineers Apple's iMessage protocols to properly interface with the chat service. In other words, it makes your Android phone look like an iPhone to iMessage.

Although Beeper Mini promises end-to-end encryption support, it still poses “significant risks to user security and privacy” according to Apple, which is why Apple has now blocked Beeper Mini access. At the time of writing, those blocks are still in place.

“We will keep it working,” Beeper co-founder Eric Migicovsky posted, after Apple took action. You can still use the cloud Beeper service to access iMessage from non-Apple devices – but, like Sunbird and Nothing Chats – this uses a less secure method, deploying Mac computers as intermediaries to fool the iMessage service.

The green bubbles are staying

iMessage interface on iPhone

(Image credit: Future / Apple)

In the US, where iPhones dominate, much is made of Android users showing up as green bubbles in conversations, without support for advanced iMessage features like reactions and message editing. In other countries, many users have switched to alternative apps such as WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger, which work the same on any smartphone.

While Apple has now said it will support RCS in 2024 – that's the upgraded version of SMS, with extras like read receipts and high-resolution image support – Android users will still show up as green bubbles. These colors seem to be hugely important to some people, even though Android users are getting closer to feature parity under the hood.

The problem for anyone trying to recreate iMessage on Android is that Apple doesn't allow any third-party access to the service. Unless Apple actually decides to release iMessage for Android, anything else is going to be a workaround – and no matter how clever that workaround is (Beeper Mini is the cleverest yet), Apple can theoretically shut it out.

From Apple's perspective, it wants to keep iMessage secure and private for its users, but we also know it wants to keep people locked into using iPhones. Despite pressure from Google and the EU, green bubbles are staying around for the foreseeable future.

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Beeper Mini gives Android users a way to talk to iMessage on iOS right now
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In November, Apple announced it will finally support the RCS messaging standard allowing Android devices and iPhones to communicate on a potentially more level playing field. The update won’t arrive until early 2024, but luckily there is a third-party solution that you can download today called Beeper Mini.

The app gives Android users the ability to send end-to-end encrypted texts to an iPhone using Apple’s very own iMessage protocol. This means both parties will see all messages in blue bubbles instead of forcing Android hardware to green bubbles. You don’t need an Apple ID to use the service. Even if you had one, the developer Beeper says it doesn't have access to your Apple account. Users will, however, need to give Beeper Mini permission to access their phone’s SMS and Call Logs to verify the number as well as sync to pre-existing conversations to convert them into proper iMessage chats.

Beeper Mini on Android

(Image credit: Beeper Mini)

Looking at the official Google Play Store listing, you’ll find Beeper Mini has a multitude of iMessage features. You'll be able to send full-sized photographs and videos to others as well as react to their content with an emoji. The app also allows you to join previously inaccessible iPhone-only group chats. Plus, the software offers a way to sync iMessages across other “Android or iOS devices, including” iPads.

Other notable features include typing status, read receipts, unsending, and more. Beeper Mini is available for download now. You will need to pay $ 1.99 to use the service although the developer is offering a seven-day free trial to start.

How it works

You may be wondering how is this even possible. It’s complicated to say the least.

The way it works, according to an official blog post, is that an SMS text is sent from an Android number to Apple’s “Gateway service.” The gateway then responds with its own message and sends the initial text to Apple servers registering it as an iPhone. This process was made possible by security researcher and reported high school student JJTech who reportedly managed to “reverse engineer” iMessage’s protocol. Beeper took JJTech’s work (presumably with their permission) and then implemented it in their app.

The developer also created the Beeper Push Notification service, or BPNs for short, to maintain a constant connection to Apple servers and to tell you of any new texts.

That’s the gist of how it works. If you want more details, we highly recommend reading Beeper’s post along with JJTech’s iMessage breakdown to get the full picture. 

Analysis: Potential trouble

Now you may be wondering, is Apple okay with this? It's tough to say. Things are a little weird right now.

Eric Migicovsky, CEO of Beeper, told TechCrunch a provision in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act states that “reverse engineering for the purposes of interoperability is protected”, implying that the law protects them from litigation. 

This hasn’t stopped Apple from suing other companies using their services. However, now we have the Digital Markets Act which forces tech corporations to support interoperability for their messaging platforms. What’s more, the US DOJ (Department of Justice) has been going after titans in the industry over alleged antitrust violations. Right now, it’s going after Google.

Apple might let Beeper Mini slide on by to stay in the good graces of the DOJ. But it’s hard to say for sure. We’re in uncharted territory here. Apple could, at any time, strike down the app with the force of a thousand suns. It’ll be interesting to see how this situation plays out.

Be sure to check out TechRadar's list of the best Android phones for 2023.

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