[I_Am_Nous]

Seems like a chess move. Apple blocks a small percentage of users instead of all of them, which casts uncertainty on using Beeper Mini at all. It also allows them to A/B test various methods of blocking or honeypotting Beeper Mini logins without giving away any big secrets.

From Beeper's perspective, they now have to figure out why only those logins were blocked and if they need to patch something or not. Apple could be wasting their time and blocked random users out of spite.

Time will tell.

[standardUser]

Ugh, it is beyond depressing to imagine Apple bigwigs sitting around discussing ways to make absolutely certain teens keep getting ostracized until they buy their overpriced product.

[StressedDev]

If someone is ostracizing you because you do not own an iPhone, you probably want to avoid that person. I have never met anyone who would do this and frankly, only an extremely nasty person would do this. I am mean seriously, why ostracized someone because they use a different type of phone?

[vineyardmike]

Do you forget being a teenager? /s

It's not simply a MeanGirls experience of not being cool enough. Most Americans don't use or have 3rd party apps like WhatsApp, so most people will fall-back to SMS, which is objectively a much worse experience. I feel like the adult equivalent is getting group dinner with a friend with severe allergies or dietary restrictions. You care about your friend, and you want to invite them, but the effort to include them is high and sometimes you want to try a restaurant you know they can't eat at, so you skip the invite. I'm a vegetarian, and I know my friends skip me outright in the steakhouse dinners.

50% of Americans have an iPhone, and that is even higher for teenagers (almost 90%). That means >50% of people have this superior group functionality built-in (can't beat defaults). That means for teenagers, most of your friends will have iMessages, and most will be able to do effortless group chats, and its a statistical dice-roll to see if someone doesn't have an iPhone. You become "that guy" that causing disruption, and you'll 100% be ignored sporadically.

Again, the issue isn't "I don't wanna see green bubbles", the issue is "I don't want to bother with a third party app for this conversation". Since most people don't regularly use 3rd party messaging apps, there's a coordination issue to be solved picking the app and confirming everyone has it, OR falling back to SMS which is pretty messy. The alternative is to skip one friend and just fill them in later. Sometimes it's easier, it's not an elitist attempt to ostracize.

[text0404]

sorry but this sounds like it's written by someone who is definitely not a teenager and who hasn't experienced this before.

[vineyardmike]

Not a teenager today but I was ~13 when iMessages came out, and owned an iPhone since. Except for 3mo when I was 16.

[withinboredom]

This is an adulting problem. Most of my adult friends use WhatsApp around me. So, our kids use WhatsApp because that is how they communicate with us. So, the "actual" solution is to start using WhatsApp (or whatever) and get your friends to do it. Then force your kids to do it ... then bam, iMessage no longer matters.

[fennecfoxy]

First of all you forget what it's like being a teen/young person I guess, or perhaps your personality is different from most, but that sort of social pressure is quite tough on people.

Apple also relies on the path of least resistance as well, if someone is having a poor experience in a group chat with their iPhone friends...it just becomes "easy" for them to choose an iPhone the next time they change phones.

Look at other companies, Microsoft porting Office etc to MacOS, Google services like maps gmail etc available on the iPhone. It's only Apple that walls their tech in so that it's only on iPhone - they don't care about profit lost to not expanding their reach because they reinforce their own platform.

[Aeglaecia]

I admire the surety in children applying logic to their behaviour

[standardUser]

> I am mean seriously, why ostracized someone because they use a different type of phone?

Your current lived experiences may not be in sync with people in their teens or twenties. This is a well-known phenomenon called "green bubble bullying" that Apple has masterfully orchestrated to make people force other people to buy their phones.

[jollyllama]

They're imagining that they won't just get made fun of for something else. It never ends; you either have to not care, conform, or sustain trauma.

[expensive_news]

I have met people that will do this, and trust me, they are worth avoiding.

[averageRoyalty]

Given the majority of their users don't care about that, it seems unlikely to be an accurate portrayal of the internal discussions.

[standardUser]

You don't think Apple brass is doing everything in their power to convince non-iPhone users to switch to an iPhone? Every excluded teen is another potential customer and to pretend they don't know that is beyond naïve.

[averageRoyalty]

I do, but the group that consists purely of American teenagers (even if it's 100% of them), is one of many demos, and a relatively small one globally.

[frumper]

I doubt anyone is shocked that Apple execs want to sell more Apple products. They are paid very well to do that.

[rezonant]

Do you have data about that or are you assuming you and your friends are representative of the majority of users?

It seems like one side of the debate says "I have experienced this, and the product features seem to encourage this behavior" and the other side says "No one really does this, you just have a few insane friends who happen to use iOS".

Feels like gaslighting when you've experienced this sort of behavior yourself, and not even from tweens who aren't well adjusted to the world, from your middle aged and up friends and family who are bought into that ecosystem.

[averageRoyalty]

I am not refering to myself or my friends at all.

That said, I've only seen this green vs blue debate reported on in the context of American teens. Even if it is accurate in that group (questionable), that group make up a tiny portion of global smartphone users. Even if the actual group who care are double that, it's still tiny.

As such, it seems unlikely this is such a critical thing that Apple bigwigs are sitting around discussing this group.

[MuffinFlavored]

My bigger question is how are any Beeper Mini users getting through (aka how is Beeper Mini's backend getting around the fact that... I thought you needed a valid serial # to an Apple device specific to you to log in + use iMessage)

[dylan604]

at some point Serial Box will have a list of valid/invalid hardware serial numbers. or, someone will crack the code to generate valid codes.

oh wait. i drifted off back to the 90s software cracking days.

[rekoil]

Apple doesn't have predictable serial numbers anymore, they're all just random numbers corresponding to rows in a database. There's no way to generate them.

[dylan604]

It wasn't a serious idea. The fact I mentioned it along side Serial Box should have been a clue. Maybe you're too young to know what Serial Box was, or the 90s cracking culture. Shh, the adults are speaking =)

[rekoil]

No, I remember Serial Box, serials.ws, MegaGames, scene intros, etc. I just have trouble determining tone on the internet sometimes is all.

[MuffinFlavored]

if apple checks an online database for "you authenticated and paired this hardware ID to this apple ID", is that a "Beeper Mini" killer?

[dylan604]

isn't that essentially what they are doing? that's one of the reasons a stolen iDevice is pretty much worthless.

[rezonant]

What about when the hardware is legitimately sold and reset and a new Apple ID starts using it?

[chongli]

You have to de-register the device with Apple when you sell it. Otherwise you retain the ability to remote wipe and brick the device and the buyer has no recourse.

After you de-register it the buyer can register it with Apple under their Apple ID.

[Wingy]

I have Apple devices that are allowed to use iMessage including some that I don't use. If my computer can impersonate one of them to allow me to message from my workstation that's success.

[MuffinFlavored]

> If my computer can impersonate one of them to allow me to message from my workstation that's success.

But Beeper Mini isn't asking users to bring-their-own valid hardware registered Apple hardware ID tied to their Apple ID, they're doing something different/unknown behind the scenes