Nobody had managed it, it was a 16-year-old teenager who achieved the feat: he developed an iMessage application for Android that finally allowed smartphone users to communicate freely with iPhone owners! Find out everything you need to know about Beeper Mini!
Since the beginning of the smartphone age Market fragmentation between Android and iOS raises many problems. Among other things: the inability to use Apple’s iMessage application on Android devices.
The Messaging installed natively on the iPhone or iPad is widely used by owners of these devices, but their loved ones with Android cannot access it. You are therefore forced to communicate through a third-party application available on both platforms!
However, in early 2023, a developer contacted Eric Migicovsky, the founder of Pebble and Beeper, claiming that he had figured out how to change the game. He claimed to have done it iMessage successfully reverse engineered to allow any device running Android, Windows or other operating system to send blue bubble messages representing the Apple app.
This is an important point because in the United States and elsewhere the color of the Message bubble is a reason for discrimination. In teen chat groups, Android users whose messages appear in green bubbles are often harassed and left out.
A 16-year-old succeeded where everyone else had failed
When Migicovsky received this news, he initially refused to believe it. He explains that he told himself ” Nonsense, no one on earth has done that ». As CEO of the messaging startup Beeper, he tried it himself and contacted everyone who came close to this goal – to no avail.
Beeper was founded in 2021 and manufactures the promise of creating a centralized platform for all your messages. The company has raised $16 million and now employs around twenty people.
However, that is young developer just 16 years old sent him a link to a prototype. And to his amazement, it worked.
From then on, this prototype became the basis of a brand new application for Android: Beeper Mini. This new message is available starting today.
Opening the app will scans all your SMS conversations and determines which ones come from iMessage users to convert them into blue conversation bubbles on the Apple platform.
After that, when you send a message to an iPhone user via Beeper Mini, use iMessage. THE The first testers are amazed through the fluidity of the system and its proper operation.
All Reactions, threads, photos and videos are transmitted perfectly and error-free, without compression of text messages. And no one sees the difference from a real iMessage user.
The first true iMessage app for Android
Alternatives already existed, starting with Beeper’s previous iMessage implementation. However, they were happy with it Forward messages from a cloud-hosted Mac.
This is a pose serious safety issues. Recently, the Sunbird and Nothing Chats applications were removed from the Play Store shortly after release after serious flaws were discovered.
This is not the case with the Beeper Mini Send real iMessages directly. The developers figured out how To a phone number with iMessage, send the messages directly to Apple’s servers, and then natively send them back to your phone within the app.
An application that was born thanks to the iOS jailbreak
It was a complex process that included: Completely deconstruct Apple’s messaging pipeline From A to Z. Beeper teams had to determine where the messages should go, what they should look like, and how they could be retrieved from the cloud.
The hardest part, according to Migicovsky, was getting there Bypass the system Apple uses To lock the system: Check whether the connected device is a genuine Apple product.
To achieve this, the startup iPhones with jailbreak and dove into the operating system to understand how it works. She then wrote new code from scratch to reproduce everything in her Android app.
What risks exist for data security?
Be assured : Beeper doesn’t see your messages or your contacts, nor your Apple ID password. This third-party implementation of iMessage is completely secure.
It is not You don’t even need to log in to Apple ID. The app simply connects to Apple’s servers like an iPhone.
To reassure users about security, Beeper promises to make code open source so that everyone can rate it. Additionally, CTO Brad Murray has spent time simulating cyberattacks and is publishing the results.
Can Apple ban the app?
He asked himself if whether Apple can ban this app. However, reverse engineering can circumvent intellectual property laws. There is no code written by Apple included in Beeper Mini.
Furthermore, Migicovsky is convinced he would too difficult for Apple to prohibit this messaging without breaking iMessage for its own devices.
However, that is Locking is the essence of the Appl ecosysteme. We can therefore assume that the Californian company will do everything it can to successfully ban this software from the Play Store…
Note that Apple recently promised to adopt the RCS messaging standard. This would bring with it the main advantages of iMessage for cross-platform texting.
These strengths include: Good quality photos, confirmation of receipt or even encryption. From then on, interest in Beeper Mini will largely be muted.
How much does it cost ?
Available now in the Play StoreThe application requires a paid subscription 2 dollars per month. It only allows access to iMessage.
In the near future, Beeper Mini will be integrated with all other services offered by the main Beeper application. So it will also be possible to access WhatsApp, Messenger or even signal from the same interface!