Malcolm Owen
The development team behind Beeper Mini has promised a fix for its iMessage on Android app, with work underway to try and regain access to Apple's messaging network.
Within days of its introduction, the Beeper Mini Android app was seemingly blocked from accessing Apple's iMessage network. In the face of blocked access, the company behind it is now fighting to regain it.
In posts to X first reported by Engadget, Beeper is working on a fix that is "still in the works." The fix itself is apparently "very close, and just a matter of a bit more time and effort."
Beeper says that it has deregistered phone numbers of users from iMessage so they can still receive text messages, albeit as a dreaded green speech bubble to iOS users. However, as the iPhone messages app "remembers" the blue bubble status for between 6 hours and 24 hours before returning to SMS, Beeper warns "it's possible that some messages will not be delivered during this period."
Beeper adds that it will be extending the seven-day trial by one additional week due to the interruption. That reset won't be applied until Beeper releases the fix, the developers state.
On Saturday, an update to Beeper Cloud enabled a connection to iMessage once more, albeit not to all accounts, and not to Beeper mini itself.
If Beeper Mini is fixed to work once more, it may face a similar issue in the not-so-distant future. With Apple keen to keep iMessage to only its own ecosystem of devices, this may result in a security arms race between the trillion-dollar iPhone maker and developers wanting iMessage to work with Android.
Andrew O'Hara
William Gallagher
12 Comments
Sorry. Hope it dies. Another vector for spam.
Too much of a social construct. Just live your life, blue bubbles or not
I mean just change the color to blue. What is the point of this trouble.
This all smells like a form of tech piracy to me. How can the dev team promise a fix without Apple's legal and technical blessing (which is NEVER going to happen). Do some Apple users enjoy the panache that comes with blue texts, obviously yes (p.s. unless you're a teenager, how juvenile can you be). But I do believe that one of Apple's reasons to develop iMessage began with their authentic desire to give its users security. Is it annoying when a green texter prevents certain features in an otherwise all blue chain, sure. But I am sure as heck not trading in security for that annoyance to go away and I am DEFINITELY not going to trade it in so some Android user can feel cool (again, how old are you?). I rely on blue texts to be assured of secure iMessage communication, and thank you Apple for this visual distinction. If some third party can develop something to essentially lead me into believing something that isn't, I'm going to have very big problem with that. There are people saying that Beeper makes communication with Android users more secure just as Beeper is tweeting that if you get a message from Apple saying a Mac now has access to iMessage "it's because Apple doesn't know how to say that "Beeper" has re-established its connection". So now Apple is sending out false or misleading security messages? Oh joy! Moreover, my friends phone number was stolen from him via someone walking into the at&t store and the thief quickly ported his number onto another phone and started using it to phish and scam. It was a nightmare. What happens if that criminal can subsequently hijack "the secure blue text" via this Beeper app. Nope.
I really don’t understand the point of this nonsense. Anybody that I know and communicate with regularly that is unfortunate enough to use android (I jest…sort of) but we simply communicate through signal or rarely with WhatsApp. It’s not an issue. Personally I feel that this is more about people namely google wanting to get one over on apple and cause problems for them. It’s only since they started whining about RCS and the like that these services have begun to crop up. And frankly without Apples permission to use their service I hope it lands them in hot water.