[HN Gopher] Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access
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Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access
Author : coloneltcb
Score : 70 points
Date : 2023-12-08 21:41 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
| nicklevin wrote:
| Saw that coming. Just like Google did with the SEO heist a person
| bragged about a couple weeks ago, if you make big tech companies
| look foolish they are going to react quickly.
| blinding-streak wrote:
| SEO heist?
| minimaxir wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38433856
| minimaxir wrote:
| When did Google react to the SEO heist? I can't seem to find a
| source for it.
| nicklevin wrote:
| https://x.com/rosshudgens/status/1729889490947518868
| gruez wrote:
| This is still baffling. The tweets make it sound like
| they're competing against google and stole traffic from
| google, but their landing page makes it look like they're
| some sort of business modeling SaaS? Why would they be
| competing against google?
| travem wrote:
| They are competing against another business (not google),
| and through AI generation of content (based information
| gathered from the competitors site map) they were able to
| capture web traffic from Google that would previously
| have gone to their competitor.
| ribosometronome wrote:
| Isn't it just fighting over already low effort affiliate
| spam pages, anyway? The ideal result is seeing none of
| them.
| mchanson wrote:
| Smart to do it Friday afternoon.
| vinberdon wrote:
| That was fast!
| cloudking wrote:
| I wonder what Apple will do with the number registrations that
| came from Androids.
| frizlab wrote:
| Unregister them, just like when so switch from iOS to android I
| guess
| mchanson wrote:
| Done late on a Friday.
| spzb wrote:
| If I know anything about software dev, it'll be someone at
| Bleeper who fat-fingered something in their haste to get the
| weekend started.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| The EU will probably look closely into that.
| superb_dev wrote:
| Why? iMessage so far isn't a part of the EU's plan. There's no
| requirement for it to be open.
| rplnt wrote:
| Apple isn't blocking competitive messaging apps from their
| platform. They are simply blocking unauthorized access to their
| services. EU won't look at Slack for blocking your irc client,
| and EU won't look at this.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Potato, potato. Would they authorize it if asked?
| etchalon wrote:
| No, and, at the moment at least, they have no legal
| requirement to do so.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| If you can't come up with at least a specious argument as
| to why your [insert thing] should be locked down, you
| should expect EU Antitrust at your door in the near
| future.
| etchalon wrote:
| "Cause it's ours and we don't want to." is a very
| legitimate reason.
|
| I don't have to let you into my house. I don't owe you a
| reason. It's my house.
| hnuser435 wrote:
| Brutal. Will there be refunds?
| graypegg wrote:
| Well, to be fair, wasn't this always going to be the end state?
| I wouldn't be surprised if the choice of subscription plan was
| mostly because it makes "total value-time received" a really
| easy calculation. It worked for 2 months, you're not getting
| your 4$ back.
|
| Surprised it only lasted this long though, I'm sure they
| weren't betting on that. I still wouldn't expect a refund for
| the 1,50$ of 3 weeks this payment cycle that you didn't use.
| DeIlliad wrote:
| Beeper Mini starts as a 7 day trial and its been 24 hours so I
| imagine they'll be fine.
| focusedone wrote:
| Why can't we have nice things?
| sonicanatidae wrote:
| Humans. Humans are why we can't have nice things.
| waffleiron wrote:
| Greed I'd argue, there are many that aren't greedy but enough
| to ruin many things.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Oh, so we just kill all the humans, and _then_ we can have
| nice things?
| JohnMakin wrote:
| this comment predicted it:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38536577
| madeofpalk wrote:
| I'm pretty sure _everyone_ predicted it. It was exceptionally
| clear to anyone that Apple would block this and patch the hole
| that allows it to work.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| but, if you read the comment, he points out why/how, which
| other commenters seemed confused about.
| etchalon wrote:
| You mean the company who controls the protocol, and the clients,
| and the servers for a given service somehow found a way to stop a
| third-party from utilizing that service without permission?
|
| I am shocked at this outcome, and shall write my senator.
| sonicanatidae wrote:
| Make sure you mention the tubes!
| rplnt wrote:
| And IIRC it used some old OSX binaries to do so? Just
| terminating the access might be a lucky outcome if that's the
| case, considring the money involved.
| chrisbrandow wrote:
| I mean, what did they really expect when accessing a private
| messaging service without permission?
|
| Maybe it shouldn't be private or whatever, but it still seemed
| weird to me that they thought this would "just work".
| wmf wrote:
| One may wonder if the real goal was to create an antitrust case
| rather than a working app.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| How is this a demonstration of "antitrust"? Apple does not
| unfairly prevent competition for messaging apps, as evidenced
| by a plethora of competition for messaging apps, plenty of
| which are far more popular _on iPhone_ outside of the US.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| How would this be used for an anti-trust case?
| amelius wrote:
| It's for your own good. Those Android users cannot be trusted.
| dang wrote:
| Recent and related:
|
| _Show HN: Beeper Mini - iMessage client for Android_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38531759 - Dec 2023 (863
| comments)
|
| _iMessage, explained_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38532167 - Dec 2023 (143
| comments)
| JaggedJax wrote:
| Don't worry guys, everything is perfectly fine. Their status page
| says so, and status pages are always accurate.
| https://beeperstatus.com/
| DeIlliad wrote:
| This status page is for their cloud offering, Beeper Cloud.
| Given how Beeper Mini works I don't think they could even make
| a status page for it?
| JaggedJax wrote:
| That's very likely. They don't actually say anywhere what
| that status page is for. I do feel like they could be and
| should be collecting stats on whether or not messages are
| sending properly or not in app, especially since this ways
| always the most likely scenario eventually.
| crazysim wrote:
| This was the way with GAIM and Adium and stuff back in the old
| days. It'll be back.
| phailhaus wrote:
| Crazy that the CEO even tried to create an entire company based
| on something that they absolutely cannot control. Was this an
| acquisition play?
| maelito wrote:
| The entire company is not based on Beeper Mini.
| rglullis wrote:
| Beeper is doing a lot more than just an iMessage proxy.
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| > Reached for comment, Beeper CEO Eric Migicovsky did not deny
| that Apple has successfully blocked Beeper Mini. "If it's Apple,
| then I think the biggest question is... if Apple truly cares
| about the privacy and security of their own iPhone users, why
| would they stop a service that enables their own users to now
| send encrypted messages to Android users, rather than using
| unsecure SMS? With their announcement of RCS support, it's clear
| that Apple knows they have a gaping hole here. Beeper Mini is
| here today and works great. Why force iPhone users back to
| sending unencrypted SMS when they chat with friends on Android?"
|
| Does it come down to The Law of Leaky Abstractions?
|
| >> https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/11/11/the-law-of-
| leaky-a...
|
| Which means that if Apple wants to change something eventually,
| then they will possibly break downstream abstractions and then
| people will complain and the downstream abstraction will say
| "Well Apple changed their API, it is their fault". Letting
| someone do it from square one would be enabling that future
| scenario, as it isn't "if" it changes, it is "when".
|
| If it was an open source API that would be different, but Apple's
| is closed source, that is Apple's philosophy at the core. It is a
| closed API yah? Not even an open spec right?
| trynumber9 wrote:
| The EU should, like they did years ago with PC operating systems,
| mandate a default browser selection screen. And a default
| messenger selection screen. And a default app store selection
| screen.
|
| Not that we'd get it in the US but it would help reduce
| Apple/Google market capture efforts.
| gafage wrote:
| >And a default messenger selection screen.
|
| What for? Everybody in the EU already use whatsapp.
| mh8h wrote:
| An open source client for iMessage is going to be used for fraud
| and spam. Before this, a device being blocked by Apple because it
| was used for fraud or spam would increase the cost of business
| for fraudsters and spammers. But now it's a matter of picking a
| new phone number. Of course Apple would try hard to stop this.
| KomoD wrote:
| This is what Snazzy Labs said about Beeper Mini... hilarious:
|
| > This doesn't appear to be some easy thing Apple can just turn
| off.
|
| > It will require a complete redesign of their entire
| authentication and delivery strategy for not just iMessage but
| Apple ID account access as a whole.
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(page generated 2023-12-08 23:00 UTC)