Beeper reverse-engineered iMessage to bring blue bubble texts to Android users::The push to bring iMessage to Android users today adds a new contender. A startup called Beeper, which had been working on a multi-platform messaging

  • gregorum@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    oh, can’t android users receive high-quality videos and photos? after 16 years of smartphones, you’d think they’d have that figured out…

    • mcqtom@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Yeah the whole reason Apple won’t allow it is because they expect you to conclude exactly this.

    • Mountaineer@aussie.zone
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      11 months ago

      It’s not the android side that’s failing, it’s Apples refusal to implement anything other than SMS for cross ecosystem compatibility.

      • JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        It’s also why third party messaging apps like Whatsapp are thriving, much to the consternation of every person on the network. I used to be able to pick up the phone and call or message anyone. Now I need to check compatibility first. Wtf apple.

      • mike805@fosstodon.org
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        11 months ago

        @Mountaineer @gregorum Apple is going to implement RCS, the EU put pressure on them.

        However I am surprised that Beeper was able to do this in software. With everyone else using an Apple device as a proxy, I figured the protocol required a magic handshake from the TPM chip in an Apple device. That would be easy to do.

        • Mountaineer@aussie.zone
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          11 months ago

          There’s some gotchas in Apples statement:

          They have promised to implement “RCS Universal Profile”
          This means the bare minimum, not the advanced features implemented by Google and Samsung etc.
          An example of a missing feature from Universal Profile is end to end encryption.

          They also said: “This will work alongside iMessage, which will continue to be the best and most secure messaging experience for Apple users.”
          The implication of this is that it won’t be in the iMessage app, it will be in a separate but official app, siloing your Android friends from your iPhone friends.

          When this comes out, every European is going to shrug and keep using Whatsapp.

          • mike805@fosstodon.org
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            11 months ago

            @Mountaineer Encryption needs to be added to the standard, and then Apple will be expected to implement it. Hopefully the EU knocks some heads together and makes this happen.

            WhatsApp is owned by Facebook and has ads, which is two good reasons not to use it. Europeans are just as “stuck with a bad standard” as Americans are here.

            I use RCS quite a bit and like it. Although nothing on a phone should be regarded as truly secure.

        • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          RCS is too liitle, too late. It sucks. People have issues with it today… It’s less reliable than SMS, and it’s E2EE is problematic.

          Fortunately much of the world has moved away from SMS already, so those folks aren’t coming back. I try real hard to get people away from it.

    • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      iOS can’t send hi quality videos or images over SMS. It’s a choice made by Apple.

      I can send large videos (more than 50mb, for sure) over SMS from my Android phone on Verizon to a Verizon iPhone. They receive it in same quality. When they send it back, the iPhone butchers it.

      Verizon, unlike other carriers, doesn’t seem to have an MMS size limit.

    • yeehaw@lemmy.ca
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      11 months ago

      You need to think of iMessage as Google messages, Whatsapp, telegram, signal, etc. Except this is only installed on iPhones and they want everyone to know it. It’s arrogant and stupid. The app could just be released for Android and it would be no different than the others I mentioned.

      It’s gatekeeping.

    • Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca
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      11 months ago

      Android to Android, sure.

      But Apple and Google refuse to play nicely with each other, so Android to Iphone or Iphone to Android both suck.

      It’s not a lack of capability, it’s the refusal to implement it to try and force users to pick a side.

      • helenslunch@feddit.nl
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        11 months ago

        But Apple and Google refuse to play nicely with each other, so Android to Iphone or Iphone to Android both suck.

        Yeah this is a gross mischaracterization of the situation.

        1. Google is more than happy to “play nicely” with Apple. They’re the ones who convinced Apple to adopt RCS. Apple is the one holding out.

        2. They totally do “play nicely” on literally every messenger app in existence except iMessage, which is the only SMS app you’re allowed to use on iOS. This is not any sort of hardware or software limitation, this is purely greed from Apple to control their users and create a walled garden.

        This entire shitty situation is 100% on Apple and their users.

        • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          To be fair, Google’s messaging plans and implementations have been all over the place for a decade. Apple still should have been more proactive. They promised iMessage would come to Android until they realized how much of a moat it became for their business.

        • Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca
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          11 months ago

          I don’t really care which of them is responsible for it not working decently, that’s why I didn’t point the finger at one in particular.

          Point is, it’s between these two companies to agree on a solution that works for both of them and actually implement it. Yet after all this time, they still haven’t to the detriment of consumers globally.

          I’ll believe the IOS RCS implementation when it’s actually released. Promises from corporations are worthless.

          • helenslunch@feddit.nl
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            11 months ago

            that’s why I didn’t point the finger at one in particular.

            No you pointed the finger at both of them, which is why I corrected you.

            Point is, it’s between these two companies to agree on a solution that works for both of them and actually implement it.

            Point is you can’t have an agreement when the other party won’t even entertain a conversation, nor do they want to come to an agreement.

        • Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca
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          11 months ago

          If you’re talking about RCS, androids newer native messaging system, no apple has not implemented that yet.

          There has always been dozens of messaging apps users can use, including Google Chat, but they are all seprate apps that both you and the recipient have to choose to install and use. That’s the main problem.

          The goal is to have the native messaging apps on both platforms be able to speak to each other with the same quality right out of the box, just as they can within the same platform right now (apple to apple, and android to android).

    • sanguine_artichoke@midwest.social
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      11 months ago

      Android uses RCS now, a higher quality and more feature rich standard than SMS. However… Apple hasn’t added it to iOS, so it doesn’t work to send to iPhones and they receive bog-standard SMS from Android devices.

      • LWD@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        To be fair, RCS is only marginally more open than iMessage is. There’s a reason you can’t find a single open source app that implements it, there’s a reason the lion’s share of messages pass through servers owned by Google on one or both ends, and there’s a reason only Google has implemented E2EE with it.

    • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      iOS can’t send hi quality videos or images over SMS. It’s a choice made by Apple.

      I can send large videos (more than 50mb, for sure) over SMS from my Android phone on Verizon to a Verizon iPhone. They receive it in same quality. When they send it back, the iPhone butchers it.

      Verizon, unlike other carriers, doesn’t seem to have an MMS size limit.