Apple’s recent move to block Beeper Mini, the app that lets Android users chat with iPhone through the iMessage protocol, has caught the eye and a fair bit of ire of several U.S. congresspeople. Now lawmakers are calling for an investigation into the tech giant over “potential anticompetitive treatment” of the smaller messaging app. Threads … Read more
If you ever wanted help picking out an outfit, Meta just rolled out a beat for its Ray-Ban Smart Glasses that’ll give you fashion advice based on what’s in your closet. Meanwhile, the Apple and Beeper Mini messaging saga took a dramatic turn. Gizmodo covered all this news and more, and you can catch up with … Read more
U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is throwing her weight behind Beeper, the app that allowed Android users to message iPhone users via iMessage, until Apple shut it down. Warren, an advocate for stricter antitrust enforcement, posted her support for Beeper on X (formerly Twitter) and questioned why Apple would restrict a competitor. The post indicates … Read more
In the latest chapter of blue bubbles versus green bubbles, Apple has blocked access to iMessage from credentials masquerading as Apple in order to protect its customers, the company told CNET on Saturday evening. This comes after companies like Beeper and Nothing released Android apps that had provided a workaround. The iPhone maker said that … Read more
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A few days after the team at Beeper proudly announced a way for users to send blue-bubble iMessages directly from their Android devices without any weird relay servers, and about 24 hours after it became clear Apple had taken steps to shut that down, Apple has shared its take on the issue. The company’s stance … Read more
Was it too good to be true? Beeper, the startup that reverse-engineered iMessage to bring blue bubble texts to Android users, is experiencing an outage, the company reported via a post on X on Friday. And Apple is to blame, it seems. Users, including those of us at TechCrunch with access to the app, began … Read more
Note: As I was getting ready to publish this piece, Beeper’s servers began faltering. TechCrunch reports that Beeper Mini had lost access to Apple’s servers, though I’m still able to send text-based messages with a bit of delay. This piece covers the experience before this breaking news hit. I reached out to Beeper to ask … Read more
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It appears that Beeper Mini, an easy iMessage solution for Android, was simply too good to be true — or a short-lived dream, at least. On Friday, less than a week after its launch, the app started experiencing technical issues when users were suddenly unable to send and receive blue bubble messages. The problems grew … Read more
Beeper Mini’s key feature — allowing Android phones to send texts on Apple’s iMessage service — appears to have gone down during its first week of operation. Following reports from Beeper Mini users that messages weren’t sending or receiving on Friday, a post from the app’s X account said the team is now investigating why the iMessage … Read more
“It’s not easy being green,” Kermit the Frog once said — and that couldn’t be more true if you’re an Android user in a pro-iPhone environment. iDevice users don’t want to date you, friends berate you for crippling group texts, and people assume that you’re poor. Beeper Mini is the best app for Android users … Read more