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There’s a new iMessage for Android app — and it actually works (www.theverge.com)

submitted 1 year ago by AnActOfCreation@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world

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• A new Android app called Beeper Mini allows users to send iMessages as blue bubbles from non-Apple devices.

• Beeper Mini bypasses traditional iMessage hacks by directly sending iMessages from Android devices.

• The app has been praised for its smooth functionality, sending messages seamlessly between Android and iPhone users.

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[–] Rootiest@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Here's a simple picture with minimal reading required.

This is very different to the technology used in the free/wait-list Beeper Cloud app and all the other previous attempts at an iMessage for Android app.

To summarize:

All messages are sent directly between your device and Apple's servers. You do not even need an AppleID. There is a cloud server involved but it's only job is to send push notifications to Android so they app knows when to download new messages (securely with iMessage encryption) from Apple's servers.

No message contents are sent through the cloud server, it just notifies your device when there are new messages. This is necessary because Apple servers obviously do not support Android push notifications.

[–] scarilog@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Running BlueBubbles at the moment, eagerly awaiting someone to build a self hosted implementation of this so I can stop relying on my macos VM.

This implementation I think also allows you to use the phone number of your android device, which is a feature that not even the BlueBubbles method has been able to do.

[–] Rootiest@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Running BlueBubbles at the moment, eagerly awaiting someone to build a self hosted implementation of this so I can stop relying on my macos VM.

Beeper Mini does not require a Mac VM or any Apple products. There's no cloud proxy to self host. It registers your phone number directly with Apple's servers, you don't even need an AppleID at all, just like on an iPhone.

It's indistinguishable from an iPhone on Apple's end and your iMessage encryption keys never leave your phone

[–] scarilog@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah I know I was referring to the notifications, because my understanding is that you need a separate server to forward notifications to your device from the APN...? Idk maybe the firebase free tier can handle this without the need for a desktop app running somewhere.

[–] Rootiest@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Notifications are generated after the message is pulled from Apple's servers to your device.

The push messages just tell your device a message is available to be pulled. It doesn't contain any message contents or metadata.

It's basically just "you have a new message waiting" and then your phone will ping Apple's server to request the message.