Apple still not playing nice with Android, blocks Beeper Mini

Apple is still not playing nice with Android and blocks the Beeper Mini. Or is the issue something else? Whatever the reason — sorry Android — No Blue Bubbles for you! The new easy-access solution for iMessage must have been too good to be true. It only launched a week ago, but the app began experiencing technical difficulties almost immediately. Users can’t send or receive blue bubble messages. Users began reporting the issue, and the comments piled up. The Verge said that its employees were not able to activate their Android phone numbers on the Beeper Mini today.

To begin with, Beeper Mini resulted from an attempt to reverse engineer Apple’s messaging tool, and everything went well for a while. The developers were able to figure out how to register a phone number with iMessage. The messages were integrated directly into Apple’s servers, and then the message was relayed back to the Android phone. Snazzy Labs made a great video on how to do the process. The video is still on YouTube as of this writing — and it’s pretty fun to watch.

The Verge says that Beeper Mini hoped that its messaging app would be too much trouble for Apple to unravel — but apparently, Apple took very little time to stop the app.

The Beeper CEO, Eric Migicovsky, said there was a considerable outrage — you can read it here on X.

Investigating reports that sending/receiving is not working in Beeper Mini 🔎

— Beeper (@onbeeper) December 8, 2023

It will be interesting to see if the Beeper engineers can provide a workaround solution. IMessage and group chats have always been an issue fraught with problems between Apple and Android. Try getting your Pickleball team all connected and talking about where to meet, and it becomes a cellphone nightmare.

“That means that anytime you text your Android friends, anyone can read the message. Apple can read the message. Your phone carrier can read the message. Google… literally, it’s just like a postcard. Anyone can read it. So Beeper Mini actually increases the security of iPhones.” –Eric Migicovsky to TechCrunch

We already know that Apple sees its iMessage as a key tool to lock users into the never-ending ecosystem of Apple. This may be a smart move on the part of Apple. Others were hoping that the EU’s interoperability regulation would put a stop to Apple’s insider operations — but that regulation doesn’t go into effect until 2024, so we’ll watch to see what occurs.

Those close to the EU source said Apple is set to avoid the EU crackdown.

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Deanna Ritchie

Managing Editor at ReadWrite

Deanna is the Managing Editor at ReadWrite. Previously she worked as the Editor in Chief for Startup Grind and has over 20+ years of experience in content management and content development.