[foxhill]

the optics are already less than ideal for apple. beeper mini dismisses the any technical challenge apple may claim a hurdle to android having iMessage.

i don’t doubt this will also get shutdown in the near term, but i’m 70% confident in a surprising acquisition & continued support from apple in the longer term.

it will be hard for apple to continue to claim they are pro-user when they appear to be this hostile toward android users.

[jkubicek]

I'm 0% confident in a surprise acquisition by Apple. Beeper doesn't seem to offer anything that Apple couldn't do themselves.

[hamandcheese]

With that logic you would expect Apple to never make acquisitions. They've got the money in the bank to do just about anything.

[jkubicek]

I should have said it explicitly, but there was an implicit "couldn't do themselves in a reasonable amount of time".

If the rumors are true, Apple already has iMessage running on Android, they just haven't released it yet. They used to support AIM and other messaging services, so they're no stranger to cross-platform messaging apps. The could probably pull together a Beeper competitor pretty quickly.

[rchaud]

Nobody at Apple would want to work on a second-class citizen app. That's why they'd acquire a company to do it and maintain it.

[averageRoyalty]

Can you show an example of an aquisition they've made to explicitly stop an external company using their APIs?

I've not heard of one, it doesn't appear to be in their playbook.

[hamandcheese]

You're moving the goalposts. Parent said "Beeper doesn't seem to offer anything that Apple couldn't do themselves."

[MBCook]

It’s the same thing. There is no reason for Apple to buy Beeper except to make them stop.

Apple doesn’t do that. It has lawyers to use.

[hamandcheese]

> There is no reason for Apple to buy Beeper except to make them stop.

OP clearly was not arguing that the acquisition would be for a shutdown.

Acquisition and continued operation is a plausible (albeit unlikely) strategy that Apple could use to avoid further regulatory scrutiny while also deterring copycats.

[roamerz]

>> it will be hard for apple to continue to claim they are pro-user when they appear to be this hostile toward android users.

They are pro user - for Apple ecosystem users that is. And I’m good with that.

Disclaimer: Yup I’m an Apple user. I pay good money to keep the riffraff out - or at least ID them by not being blue.

[haswell]

> They are pro user - for Apple ecosystem users that is. And I’m good with that.

I don’t really agree. The interoperability impact means that I’m affected as an iPhone user too. I’m only not impacted when I communicate with other iPhone users.

And it matters to me that my choice of device impacts the users I interact with. Apple just knows that their lock-in is strong, and the impact is disproportionately felt by non-Apple users.

This is not the same as being “pro Apple user” IMO. They’re just able to get away with it with their own user base because they’re less aware of the impact.

[roamerz]

>> And it matters to me that my choice of device impacts the users I interact with.

Interesting. How does this impact an Android user who sends text to you? To them everyone is green (or whatever color Android uses) correct?

[haswell]

Any kind of multimedia is compressed behind recognition. Basic texts are fine. Send me an image, and it’ll look like it came from another era.

[s3p]

Exactly I can’t see how this is as big an issue as they let on

[haswell]

I would recommend finding a friend or looking up a YT video or whatever to see what the experience is like. Theres a reason this keeps hitting the front page, and it isn’t because the current experience is good.

[ColonelPhantom]

Did you actually read the parent comment? They consider a worse chat experience with Android users a feature, because God forbid someone prefers Android, or shudders doesn't want to spend $1000 on a phone.

[haswell]

I think you and I are interpreting “riffraff” differently.

I took it to mean the myriad of SMS scams and spam that is rampant outside of iMessage, not Android users broadly.

My point was that Apple isn’t caring about their users by doing this. They’re negatively impacting my ability as an Apple user to communicate with people who prefer Android, and that is a stance that affects both parties. It’s not pro user.

I suspect we’re in violent agreement that excluding-Android-as-a-feature is not a pro-user stance.

[roamerz]

>> consider a worse chat experience with Android users a feature

Well not really - it would be great if the sms feature set matched imessage. The main benefit to me when I see blue is that I know that person is probably at least authenticated and probably has a credit card tied to that account. That in itself seems to limit the riffraff (scammers) that want to send spam or other garbage. I see way more of that from green than I do blue.

[modeless]

Acquiring Beeper would paint a giant target on the iMessage team. "Reverse engineer iMessage to make an Android app and get a payday from Apple, guaranteed!" 0% likelihood of that.

It would make more sense for Google to acquire them, and start the inevitable court fight with the best legal team money can buy instead of whatever Beeper can afford right now. But Google would probably prefer to stay out of it, so it remains a David and Goliath fight as long as possible.

[haswell]

For sake of argument, if they acquire the Beeper team and continue supporting it, there is no further incentive for more Beeper-like apps to emerge.

Apple would at that point have a leg to stand on when they go after non-native apps, and I think this would actually be a deterrent for copycat attempts and not something that encourages the behavior.

[modeless]

If Apple wanted iMessage on Android they would have done it already. There are emails from executives made public in lawsuits discussing the possibility many years ago.

[haswell]

It’s very clear that Apple does not want iMessage on Android.

My point was that if they chose to give in and acquire something like Beeper (presumably due to bad press, concerns about regulatory action, etc), it does not follow that this incentivizes more Beeper-like products.