Beeper Mini users find Macs banned from iMessage network

https://appleinsider.com/articles/24/01/14/beeper-mini-users-find-macs-banned-from-imessage-network

by lnguyen • 3 years ago

117 96 3 years ago

pram• 3 years ago

Yeah this isn’t surprising, I’ve had this happen to hackintoshes over the years. Apple has always had the ability to ban serials from iMessage afaict, and it also (seemed) to be some automated process.

It was frankly pretty risky to tell people to use their real machines for this.

rustcleaner• 3 years ago

Never would have happened if instead users relied on Briar/Jami/Session/Tox on a Google Pixel running GrapheneOS.

This is an important lesson, take it to heart!

cqqxo4zV46cp2• 3 years ago

Thus completely missing the point of this product’s entire existence and value proposition. This is not helpful and bordering on snarky. ‘Take note’ that people are well aware of the existence of other messaging services. They don’t want them. They want iMessage. The kid saying that they’re using “Tox on a Google Pixel running GrapheneOS” is sitting by themselves during recess whether you like it or not.

noman-land• 3 years ago

They don't want iMessage. They want what their friends have. If their friends used something else they would use something else.

clay_the_ripper3• 3 years ago

My take on this whole thing is that this is basically an elaborate plan to eventually use this in court against Apple to prove its anti-competitive practices.

If not for court, then at the least this is a press strategy orchestrated by someone with an interest in opening up the iMessage monopoly.

I’m sure the founder realized early on that the prospects of this becoming a valuable company on its own merits were slim - the vulnerability to Apple shutting them down was obvious. Which leads me to conclude he saw value to be created in just basically messing with Apple and forcing them to ban him.

cqqxo4zV46cp2• 3 years ago

I’m genuinely surprised that this theory isn’t more pervasive.

I seldom buy into conspiracy theories but in this case I’d go a step further and suggest that Beeper Mini was secretly enabled in some way by other commercial entities incentivised to dismantle Apple’s walled garden. Maybe not from the start, but much more likely when the public game of cat and mouse kicked off.

pxeboot• 3 years ago

I agree. There have always been highly skilled programmers capable of reverse engineering imessage, but everybody knew it would immediately get shutdown and not be worth the effort.

realusername• 3 years ago

That's definitely possible, the beeper mini case will be used in courts against Apple, that's for sure.

ccamrobertson• 3 years ago

I’m sure the founder realized early on that the prospects of this becoming a valuable company on its own merits were slim

If you actually knew Eric and the history of Beeper you would understand how hilariously false, absurd and revisionist such a statement is. Eric only started Beeper after validating massive interest from Hacker News for a paid app that would unify disparate communication channels.

jnovek2• 3 years ago

On Hacker News and Reddit especially I am always flabbergasted by the tendency to ascribe some sort of wisdom and intent to the actions of early-stage founders.

If my experiences as an early-stage founder have taught me anything I can assure you that we don’t know our asses from a hole in the ground. Founding a company is a game where you throw shit at the wall as quickly as you possibly can until something sticks and then you desperately try to figure out why it stuck. If you can figure that out, you might just have product-market fit.

This is especially true for a first time founder. You learn as you go.

gnicholas• 3 years ago

Eric only started Beeper after validating massive interest from Hacker News for a paid app that would unify disparate communication channels.

This may be true with regard to the general concept, but how does it relate to the decision to try to skirt the iMessage rules? Validating that people want a feature is different from (and somewhat orthogonal to) ensuring you can actually deliver it.

clay_the_ripper3• 3 years ago

I have no personal information on this matter, this is pure speculation.

I agree that the original intent was to do as you say. But the recent actions suggest that new motives may be in play.

Clearly Eric is a very intelligent person. I find it hard to believe that he believed that reverse engineering such an elaborate workaround would work after Apple had already proven that they were willing to shut him down.

If Eric is as smart as you say, then obviously he did not expect this latest iteration to work. Which leads me to conclude there is value (for him, for his investors) in taking these actions to force Apple’s hand.

Then again, maybe he just wants to prove a point and use the exposure to promote their next app. Whether the app will succeed is unknown but the PR strategy so far is crushing it.

pjerem• 3 years ago

Since Beeper main product is a multi protocol messaging app and iMessage is the only protocol that resists them, yes, it’s probably both.

I know it’s marketing but at the end of the day, they are fighting for a cause that matters to me and their bridges are open source so I wish them good luck.

paulmd2• 3 years ago

Since Beeper main product is a multi protocol messaging app and iMessage is the only protocol that resists them,

That’s absolutely not true though. Discord is incredibly hostile to third-party clients today for example.

https://twitter.com/discord/status/1229357198918197248?lang=...

Can’t log into Xbox live or PS5 messaging with a third party client either I’d expect. It’s not an unusual ask for a “secure” system - even if they provide a web interface they certainly don’t let you pretend to be a fake Xbox and create an account and then connect some third-party crap that continues to pretend to be an Xbox.

Hell didn’t Microsoft just crack down on third party headsets of all things? You really, really think they’re ok with you spoofing a whole Xbox on their network?

https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-bans-unauthorized-third-p...

Hell even AIM and MSN would try to break Gaim and ban users who used it back in the day - they just weren’t starting from a good enough place to be very successful at it.

https://m.slashdot.org/story/13509

That’s the overall problem is the world doesn’t quite work the way people remembered it. AOL was never happy about Gaim, Xbox and Sony and discord carry on this legacy today. If you simplify the issue even further: Google isn’t going to leave an open smtp relay if you find a way to spoof it, they certainly aren’t going to let you run a commercial service reselling it.

The whole “but nobody EVER fought against adversarial interop or banned users for using it!” before schtick is objectively not how the world worked or works and I think most of the people saying it understand that perfectly well, it’s just an angle for them to press the attack.

rchaud• 3 years ago

An elaborate plan by who? If Apple opens up iMessage to RCS as promised to EU markets, Beeper Mini becomes obsolete overnight.

nixonaddiction• 3 years ago

i really doubt it was an elaborate plan. more, people were annoyed by apple's monopoly, engineered a solution, and apple proceeded to shoot themself in the foot by trying to hold on to the said monopoly. beeper mini is probably leaning into provoking apple after witnessing the reaction, which makes sense. it gives them press. we'll see how this plays out. i know the justice department is building a case, and they're probably salivating at this evidence, but the 2024 election could result in less antitrust friendly actors working against the case. possibly. i need to research the justice department more.

kayodelycaon• 3 years ago

Calling this “retaliation” is rather dramatic. There are a number of communication platforms that don’t allow 3rd party apps to access their networks and will ban people who attempt it.

kevingadd2• 3 years ago

What would you call it other than retaliation? Punishment? Surprise behavior?

KerrAvon• 3 years ago

Expected behavior.

eddieroger• 3 years ago

Consequence for acting against Apple's terms of service.

threeseed• 3 years ago

Protecting the security and integrity of the platform.

I fully support interoperability. But it needs to be done through regulation and standards.

Not through intentional abuse of the platform for monetary gains.

crazygringo4• 3 years ago

It's just banning.

It's no different than if you get caught running cheat software in an online game.

The company isn't "retaliating" against you, or even "punishing" you -- they're just banning you. You broke the rules and that's what happens.

kevingadd2• 3 years ago

This further undermines the "are they supposed to let Android users use iMessage for free?" defense, given that these users already bought a Mac. And now those paying customers eat hardware bans for using their own hardware in a way Apple doesn't like.

ericzawo• 3 years ago

Went from "Here's to the crazy ones" to "we'll punish our customers for not jumping how we say" in 30 years.

redserk2• 3 years ago

Completely disagree on this.

This is Beeper, a for-profit company, throwing a tantrum, violating the ToS of Apple but leaving Beeper's users and their friends holding the bag.

bensecure4• 3 years ago

Beeper would have to have agreed to the ToS for them to have broken it. It's apple's users who agreed to a ToS, and apple users who got the boot. The lesson is that apple doesn't treat their users very well, not that some no name company who's fifteen minutes of fame are done isn't responsible enough.

crazygringo4• 3 years ago

I highly doubt they're "punishing" customers or even "retaliating" like the article says.

They've always banned iMessage access that they determined to be compromised. It's part of security and preventing abuse.

It just probably took a couple weeks for their automated system to detect.

Hopefully affected users can get it working again on their Macs via customer service, if they even care.

FireBeyond• 3 years ago

Hopefully affected users can get it working again on their Macs via customer service, if they even care.

I'm going to go wayyyy out on a limb and guess that people who were enthusiastic adopters of Beeper Mini, AND who own a Mac ARE probably going to care about getting their access working again.

I'd actually say the bigger thing would probably be "via Customer Service, if Customer Service even cares, and doesn't tell them to just create a new Apple ID".

cosmin800• 3 years ago

I don't understand the obsession with imessage, what is so special about it?

aidenn0• 3 years ago

It's what 50% of the US population uses for sending short messages.

troupo7• 3 years ago

Of all the messengers I have and my friends and family use iMessage is easily the worst designed one (well, Viber is probably worse), and no one I know uses it

NotYourLawyer• 3 years ago

Guessing you’re not in the US? It’s super common here.

nurtbo• 3 years ago

What are its design problems?

Aaargh20318• 3 years ago

Why do you consider it bad?

mmh0000• 3 years ago

My wife uses it. There's no way in hell I'll get her off it... Thus, I use it.

1123581321• 3 years ago

It's simply that it has a lot of users. Any popular enough communication protocol attracts interest in interoperating with it.

Or if you mean why anyone uses it, it's because SMS is automatically upgraded to iMessage between two iPhone users. Most people wouldn't know how to prevent that from happening or downgrade to SMS and because it feels like texting with a few extra features, they don't want to. That approach has accumulated about a billion users.

anomaly_• 3 years ago

Android folks upset Google hasn’t been able to crack unified messaging despite ~45 attempts.

63• 3 years ago

In the US, it's mostly a network effect I think. It was the default on half of people's phones and it managed to be good enough over time (unlike sms defaults on Android) to stay entrenched.

Also, imagine this scenario from the perspective of a non-technical user: You buy an expensive but high quality phone that's easy to use and has a great camera and great apps. Most of your friends have the same phone and everything works great with them. Then you try to talk to someone new but they have a phone that was probably cheaper and has a worse camera and looks like it's harder to use and full of ads. Every time they message you it turns off a bunch of your features and ruins group chats for everyone. Who are you going to blame, your phone manufacturer whose product seems to work great, or this guy with a phone so cheap and buggy that it breaks everyone else's?

Thus, non-technical iMessage users see no reason to go out of their way to use weird third party messengers. It's not their fault - it's the android users' faults for being cheap.

(For clarity, I am a hardcore android phone but I'm not delusional enough to think the average person will have a better experience on Android then iOS. I had to install fdroid and a custom launcher and a bunch of side loaded apps to get a decent experience. The average person doesn't and arguably shouldn't need to know about all that)

stalfosknight• 3 years ago

This is exactly what it's like for us iMessage users.

iMessage just works:

• It works beautifully on watchOS, iPadOS, macOS, in addition to iOS

• there's no ads

• E2EE by default

• You can send media at full quality and the recipient receives it as as you intended

• No bullshit whatsoever

My Android friends though are never able to standardize on any one app, some of them want you to use WhatsApp, some want Telegram, some want Signal. None of them have watchOS clients, they either can't be bothered with iPadOS at all or their desktop "client" is really just an lazy Electron disaster that they expect you to put up with. And when you try to explain how all of these third party alternatives are inferior, Android people look at you like you're an alien and don't understand.

It's frustrating and I wish they would just get iMessage already.

ryanwhitney• 3 years ago

Let's open WhatsApp… It's recommending that I follow channels. Do I want to follow Man City, Real Madrid, or FC Barcelona? I watch zero sports and want nothing to do with any of this. I've used the app a handful of times over the years, yet I have three threads/groups from December that are cryptocurrency, investment, and market insight scams. To me, the interface also looks bad—and it's a Facebook product.

Signal is great for certain times and places, but as a daily app it's still a bit clunky and not widely adopted.

99% of the time, iMessage just does what it says and at a high quality. No bullshit, barely any spam, and OS-level integration with my other devices.

tendencydriven• 3 years ago

The obsession with iMessage and the "blue bubble" seems to be a US only thing, no? All group chats I've ever been part of, and 99% of all other messaging, in the UK and every European country I've been in happens on WhatsApp.

zer00eyz2• 3 years ago

Signal is great for certain times and places, but as a daily app it's still a bit clunky and not widely adopted.

I loved signal when it was my MMS client. It did what iMessage did, only for android, and it worked in my mixed env (Mac, android).

Now no more mms. I have stories now. I didn't get signal for stories, I didn't want an encrypted social network.

TillE• 3 years ago

It's recommending that I follow channels

That's a slight annoyance but it's extremely new, and doesn't reflect the typical WhatsApp experience over its many years of explosive growth. It's just a simple cross-platform chat app that, as the de facto standard in most of Europe, nobody has trouble using.

dghlsakjg2• 3 years ago

From an average consumer perspective (not a HN user perspective):

It just works. As soon as I log into my Apple account on any Apple device I can access all of my messages, and seamlessly carry on a conversation on whatever device is at hand. It works with SMS as well, and I just don't have to think about it.

I know that WhatsApp is similar, but their desktop app, especially authentication, kinda sucks (I need my phone to login, and it seemingly logs me out weekly). Whatsapp is also FILLED with weird porn spam, and scammers.

larubbio• 3 years ago

It works with SMS as well, and I just don't have to think about it.

I have a mac laptop and an android phone. My son has an iphone. Half of his responses to my text messages go to my phone, the other half go to my laptop and I miss them. This is a major problem, imessage shouldn't be greedy about grabbing messages, especially when replying to an SMS. I've missed picking him up from places because I didn't get the reply.

isatty• 3 years ago

It just works. You may think that this is a meme, but it really is not. Let’s say you and someone else that you wish to communicate with has an iPhone (parent, SO, friend, whoever) and things just click into place.

- Extremely responsive, native, fast app with no clutter whatsoever, on both phones and on desktop devices (personally, I highly dislike web/electron apps)

- Close to no spam (whatsapp in particular seems to have a ton, way worse than Telegram even)

- Highest quality (amongst all the apps) audio/video calls with Facetime

- e2e encrypted by default, does not have the unconscious bias that you’re using a Facebook owned product for doing something secure, even if it really is (and as far as power users go, I don’t really particularly dislike the company like many do)

My next favorite messenger, that does Groups better than iMessage, is Telegram. I don’t wish to get into the privacy concerns (and it’s valid!) but as far as making a responsive, native app that does chat and does it well, it’s pretty superior to both Whatsapp and Signal.

gTalk of old was amazing, but I don’t think that’s coming back :(

troupo7• 3 years ago

That "no clutter whatsoever" results in every action requiring two-three more clicks than necessary.

As for "fast", just the animation in the main action menu would like a word. And then try to select stickers

bobbylarrybobby• 3 years ago

Don't forget one of its best selling points (especially in the US in ~2010): phone numbers as IDs. Everyone has a phone number, and your friends all know yours and you know theirs. It is the least common denominator of all digital communication. This really reduces friction compared to, say, having to share a username.

jwells89• 3 years ago

It working well on desktop is a big one. The only other messenger that comes close (that I’ve tried anyway; haven’t had a need to use WhatsApp for example) on that front is Telegram, which not only has a Qt-based client that’s decent everywhere but several native clients (Swift/AppKit/UIKit client on macOS on iOS, UWP client on Windows, GTK client for GTK desktops on Linux, etc).

Signal could be like Telegram in this regard but its hardline no third party client policy means the official Electron app is the only option.

crimbles3• 3 years ago

I bet if you sign out of iCloud then reinstall the Mac and sign in again it'll work again. This is probably the machine signing key being shot down for using it with an unauthorised client rather than the mac being completely banned itself.

heyoni5• 3 years ago

Nope. And they’re not detecting the client but going by usage patterns.

crimbles3• 3 years ago

Is there a reference for this anywhere / secondary confirmation? Would like to understand risk exposure of relying on iMessage going forward.

iAMkenough• 3 years ago

The hackintosh community has been troubleshooting iMessage activation issues for a decade.

Activation is tied to the Mac's serial number, so you either need to work with Apple Support to get your Mac's serial number off the blocklist, or you need to change your Mac's serial number to a unique and valid one that isn't blocked.

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/an-idiots-guide-to-imessa...

altairprime• 3 years ago

Everyone thinks it’s personal when anti-abuse automation detects token reuse and blocks the hardware ID that issued it. It’s not. It’s just an HSM-secured communications network, same as Xbox consoles use for their player messaging network, complete with the anti-abuse automation that can lead to hardware bans.

It’ll be interesting to see how hard Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony fight against any attempt to open up iMessage. They each depend critically on the right to block devices by device identifier using automation, and if a ruling is found against Apple in this matter, all hardware identifier enforcement is now voidable, which will destroy some of the value of their paid subscription services and worsen the safety of those services.

wwalexander• 3 years ago

The other day I found myself logged out of iMessage for Mac and had to reboot to get it to work; wonder if it was related to this. (Never used Beeper)

nikolay• 3 years ago

I got similar issues even with Beeper proper.

Beeper Mini users find Macs banned from iMessage network

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