Apple responds to the Beeper iMessage saga: ‘We took steps to protect our users’::Beeper, like Sunbird and Texts, sought to find a way to bring iMessage to Android users. Its app, Beeper Mini, worked well. But a few days after it launched, Apple took steps to shut it down.

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    9 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    “We took steps to protect our users by blocking techniques that exploit fake credentials in order to gain access to iMessage,” Apple senior PR manager Nadine Haija said in a statement.

    Beeper says its process works with no compromise to your encryption or privacy; the company’s documentation says that no one can read the contents of your messages other than you.

    Apple has repeatedly made clear that it doesn’t want to bring iMessage to Android: “buy your mom an iPhone,” CEO Tim Cook told a questioner at the Code Conference who wanted a better way to message their Android-toting mother, and the company’s executives have debated Android versions in the past but decided it would cannibalize iPhone sales.

    But Beeper Mini was exploiting the iMessage protocol directly, which clearly prompted Apple to tighten its security measures.

    When I say that maybe Apple’s concern is that iPhone users are suddenly sending their supposedly Apple-only blue-bubble messages via a company — Beeper — they don’t know about, Migicovsky thinks about it for a second.

    And Apple has made clear it intends to win that game, no matter how badly you want to send iMessages from an Android phone.


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