Beeper Mini made Android users blue bubbles. Apple shut it down after only a few days.

Apple responds to the Beeper iMessage saga: ‘We took steps to protect our users’::Beeper, like Sunbird and Texts, sought to find a way to bring iMessage to Android users. Its app, Beeper Mini, worked well. But a few days after it launched, Apple took steps to shut it down.

    • @[email protected]English
      4•1 year ago

      If you can get them to switch, I’d appreciate it.

      I had people switching to Signal as their SMS replacement which was compelling for them. Then Signal dropped SMS support and those people reverted.

      • @[email protected]English
        -1•1 year ago

        SMS support isn’t really as big of a deal as the Internet blows it up to be. It’s a usage pattern primarily in the US whereas the most of the world had comfortably adapted to other messaging options for years (WhatsApp reins king in Latin America, LINE in SE Asia, WeChat in China…)

        The whole iMessage / blue bubble envy is real but it’s totally overhyped.

        • @[email protected]English
          1•1 year ago

          SMS support for signal isn’t a big deal? Well, it gets people on board. So yes, it’s that big of a deal. Without it, I have no way to convince people to switch. I had people switch before, and when signal dropped SMS I lost many of them.

          And guess what, I live where that matters, so…

          I’d also rather use SMS than any of those privacy violating systems. SMS isn’t secure, but those systems are designed to be adversarial. And at least iMessage is far more secure than any of those, even with it’s issues.

          The blue bubble is an issue because we have so many iPhone users, and they, (like many Android users) , don’t want to have multiple messaging apps. I don’t agree with them, but I can’t make them change their mind. I have probably 5 messenger apps, Signal, Telegram, SimpleX, Briar, an XMPP client or two, Wire, etc. I’ll use anything that’s reasonably secure to replace SMS, but I’m not going to jump into garbage like WhatsApp

          It’s really funny hearing you be dismissive of these issues yet ignoring there are at least 3 organizations working on interop, and lots of people signing up to use them. Want to tell them?

          If it’s not an issue for you, good for you. But then why do you care so much to tell others it’s not an issue just because you can’t see it?

          As I see it, why are you using garbage like WhatsApp or FB junk? They’ve repeatedly shown they’re not trustworthy. Oh, becuase you went along with what everyone else is doing around you, clearly without any consideration for who you’re giving your data to.

          • @[email protected]English
            2•1 year ago

            If it’s not an issue for you, good for you. But then why do you care so much to tell others it’s not an issue just because you can’t see it?

            I’m sharing the international perspective. Like I said, it only really matters to people in the US, not much of an issue for the rest of the world. People have iPhones outside of the US and still use third party apps to chat away, life goes on.

            It’s really funny hearing you be dismissive of these issues yet ignoring there are at least 3 organizations working on interop, and lots of people signing up to use them.

            Dismissive of what? All I talked about was SMS support, I didn’t mention anything about Interop, which I think is a great thing by the way, thank you very much for asking.

            As I see it, why are you using garbage like WhatsApp or FB junk?

            Again, what? You are setting up a straw man. Signal is my actual daily driver and I fortunately have been able to convert most family over. Of course, I still have to juggle multiple apps to talk to everyone else. But I’m not losing any sleep over it, and personally I think neither should you.

    • Dariusmiles2123English
      3•1 year ago

      Or Threema since it’s from my country and we have a good privacy reputation 🇨🇭

      And it works really well and allows you to do what you need it to do of course.

      • @[email protected]English
        7•1 year ago

        The problem with Threema is it costs money.

        It’s not a lot of money. It’s not an unfair price. It’s completely reasonable to expect to pay for services rather than using things that spy on you. None of that matters though. I have a hard enough time getting people to use Signal, which is free; anything paid is a complete nonstarter.

        • @[email protected]English
          1•1 year ago

          Yep.

          Base usage must be free.

          And that base needs to compete with everything else.

          Maybe a paid tier for media beyond a certain size, say 50mb or 100mb, I don’t know. If I had to pay for being able to have 50mb attachments, I’d be willing to work to keep the sizes lower, helping reduce their costs. If I felt I needed the attachment size, say for work, then I could upgrade.

          Or maybe a paid tier for self-hosting that can interconnect with the rest of Signal.

          Hell, once I can start using Signal as my primary (or if they brought SMS back), I’d happily pay.

        • @[email protected]English
          1•1 year ago

          Yeah, ive used Threema and Matrix and neither competes with the ease of adoption that Signal has for normies

          • @[email protected]English
            1•1 year ago

            WhatsApp already had a very large userbase when in started charging, and IIRC only charged after the first year of use to better hook people. Given its dominance in certain markets (Europe comes to mind), WhatsApp could probably succeed with a paid model even today, but something with a tiny userbase isn’t going to grow that way.