Android

To be honest, I'm not sure what they were thinking when they released their reverse-engineered iMessage app. But I'm hoping they're back on two solid feet and will get back to focusing on their original mission because it'll mean more open source contributions back to the matrix project.

I'm not super excited about them getting bought, but at the same time I think it's better than the alternative. Beeper's CEO (now former after being bought) is infamous for creating the startup, Pebble, then running it into the ground by not selling it. As unfortunate as it is, the reality is that companies, even ones based on open source projects, can't survive without funding.

The app itself is very polished and really an excellent Matrix client.

Unfortunately these 3rd parties make it abundantly clear that they DO NOT want you using their services this way, and that ruins it. From Apple "patching" the iMessage workaround to Meta logging Beeper's server out of my accounts (Facebook, IG and WhatsApp) every couple of days and giving me warnings about "automated activity on your account" and threatening to "permanently disable" it, I just got tired of it. It's not worth it.

If you use it for something like Signal you're essentially destroying most of its privacy and security features for convenience.

Also I have no idea what their business model is. They've waffled on it so many times at this point.

It's a nice idea but was never going to and will never work as advertised.

They mention several times the end-goal being switching users directly to Matrix, which is admirable.

Also there are a lot of misleading statements in this blog.

but there’s good reason to be cautiously optimistic about the future. In March, the US government took up our fight and sued Apple for blocking Beeper Mini’s access to iMessage. The FCC is also investigating.

Nothing will happen. Apple patched a vulnerability that allowed users to hack into Apple servers. Apple has since announced RCS compatibility which will be the end of their compliance, and honestly is fair.

Apple has also announced that iPhones will support RCS chat protocol in 2024...This should fix most iPhone ↔ Android chat problems, like low resolution images/videos, lack of typing indicators and encryption.

There's no reason to believe that's true. These are not necessarily features of RCS and Apple will likely do the absolute bare minimum.

Good news – Beeper already supports RCS!

Beeper does not support native RCS. They support a Matrix bridge to Google Messages, which supports RCS. Again, dependent on third parties.

Using an all-in-one messenger like Beeper will always be less secure than using standalone apps because it can introduce another vector for attack. That being said, I believe Beeper is trying their hardest to stop "middle manning" your messages. For example, in their newest Android client they have an on-device Signal bridge which means your messages never get sent to Beeper's servers.

Personally, I am happy with the convenience of Beeper. I use it every day with multiple IM services linked and it has saved me a lot of time. I also love that Beeper is built on matrix and that they're contributing back to the open source community.

If security is your prime concern, then I definitely wouldn't use an "all-in-one" messenger service.

Yes, Beeper's apps are all closed source. But they do contribute a lot of their improvements back to the matrix community. For example, they've contributed quite a few performance improvements to the Synapse homeserver. They're also involved in getting new features supported on matrix such as media captions.

You can self host the bridges, but a lot of the "magic" happens on their clients. But if you're okay with a bit of inconvenience in setting up and bridging services, self-hosting bridges is definitely possible using another matrix client.

But... if you have an android phone and others people are using iPhones, you can still send them SMS and they can answer with SMS, no?